{"id":7317,"date":"2015-04-09T15:22:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T15:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=7317"},"modified":"2015-04-09T15:22:34","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T15:22:34","slug":"you-could-get-behind-the-wheel-of-thatchers-bullet-proof-battle-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/7317","title":{"rendered":"You could get behind the wheel of Thatcher’s bullet-proof battle bus"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the general election gets underway, the main party leaders will be spending an increasing amount of time on their battle buses — modern, high-specification coaches with room for the media pack as well as senior politicians and their spin doctors.<\/p>\n

Back in the 1980s, of course, things were a little more basic, as these shots of Margaret Thatcher’s armoured battle bus — thought to have been used\u00a0when she visited Northern Ireland — show.<\/p>\n

\"Margaret

An armoured campaign bus, thought to have been used by Margaret Thatcher when she visited Northern Ireland in the early 1980s.<\/p><\/div>\n

This armoured, 18-tonne Foden-based bus is now up for sale, courtesy of military vehicle dealer Nick Mead, who says that the beast has now outstayed his welcome and needs a new home.<\/p>\n

The bus was built by military vehicle specialist Glover Webb and is based on Foden running gear. It is powered by a 12-litre, supercharged V12 Rolls Royce diesel engine that can propel the coach to a top speed of 80mph.<\/p>\n

\"The

The cockpit: high tech it ain’t<\/p><\/div>\n

The windows are made of two-inch thick, bullet-proof glass, while the two-foot thick, honeycomb macrolite floor is capable of withstanding a landmine blast.<\/p>\n

\"Inside<\/p>\n

With seating for 36 people and space at the rear for an office desk, the coach even had its own auxiliary, roof-mounted motor that could pump clean, carbonised air to the sealed cabin in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon being deployed.<\/p>\n

With just 22,000km on the clock, the bus was used to ferry passengers on the dangerous Derry Airport \u2013 Belfast route during the 1980s. It was also previously owned by the Met Police, used as transport for the Royal Marines band and as a viewing platform at an MoD research facility.<\/p>\n

The asking price for the bus is\u00a0\u00a325,000. Mr Mead plans to list it on eBay US and believes the bus might end up in America, but hopes it will stay in the\u00a0UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An armoured coach believed to have been used by Margaret Thatcher in Northern Ireland in the 1980s is up for sale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1891],"tags":[1903,1902],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7321,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions\/7321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}