Alexander ALX200

The Alexander ALX200 was a midibus body built by Alexander of the United Kingdom. It was one of the ALX-series, which accounted for 5 different models (100/200/300/400/500, all except ALX100 featured the same designs on the front and rear panels), built for new generation (mainly low-floor) bus chassis produced since late 1990s. It was designed by John Worker, and was launched in summer 1996 as a low floor replacement of the Alexander Dash. The styling is completely different from the Dash body, with a rounded roof dome (more rounded than the Dash) and deep double-curvature windscreen with plastic mouldings under the windscreen to make it look deeper, and large circular headlights and circular front indicators, it also had a separately mounted destination box. The rear end had 3 pairs of circular lights (with sometimes an additional pair being at the top). There was a choice of bonded or gasket glazing, and was built on Dennis Dart SLF and Volvo B6LE. The design was revised when used to body a batch of short-wheelbase Dart SLF chassis for a London bus operator. It sold quite well, and buyers included Stagecoach (which includes 90 on B6LE), FirstGroup plc, Arriva and Newport (which operated some on 8.8m Dart SLF chassis) and many more. Citybus of Hong Kong purchased ten ALX200-bodied Volvo B6LE buses in 1997 (they returned to UK in 2000). Also, a number of ALX200-bodied Dennis Dart SLF had been exported to the Netherlands. However with the formation of TransBus International, the ALX200 was phased out, in favour of the more successful Plaxton Pointer in 2001 when production of the Pointer was moved from Scarborough to Falkirk (where Alexander is based).