Photo © West Yorkshire Information Service Collection. Please do not re-post without permission.

HYG973 was the second in a pair of Morris/Beadle chassisless buses new to West Yorkshire Road Car Co in late 1949.
The first, HYG972, was first licensed on 1 December 1949 with fleet number 618 and this entered service on 1 January 1950 numbered 619. Both were allocated to Harrogate depot and spent their entire, short, working life there. Renumbered SM 1/2 ("Single Morris") in April 1954, both were withdrawn on 31 July 1956. They were then taken into the Central Repair Works, where they were shortened and their bodies converted into vans. Progress could not be described as rapid - whilst this particular vehicle entered service at Harrogate on 1 October 1957, numbered 1024, its sister was not completed until the end of 1958, over two years after withdrawal, and entered service on 1 February 1959 at Leeds depot, numbered 1023.
Both were withdrawn on 31 May 1964 and sold to Norths at Sherburn in Elmet; 1023 was used for a short time by W. Lye (contractor), Leeds, as a site office on Gelderd Road, whilst this vehicle was used by the Kaye brothers, who owned Norths, on their farm at Peckfield Lodge, South Milford, for a time.
Both vehicles had large rear doors through which engines, gearboxes, etc, could be loaded. The angled badge to the left of the number plate at the front reads "Diesel", whilst that at the top of the radiator grille reads "Morris-Commercial".
The photograph appears to have been taken after the vehicle had been in service for a time rather than immediately after conversion.

Photo taken by West Yorkshire Road Car/WYIS Collection, late 1950s, Harrogate Stray

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