BUS WATCH 2020 In the UK, Sega had some tour buses. They... toured over several years. In 1993, there were three, as seen above. On the left is RCH 280R which Sega used until 1995, after which it went and did some racing. The middle is MYSTERY BUS in that I have only found one other shot of it and it's about as thrilling as you can expect: (can't see the number plate properly) But today I have discovered the fate of the right bus: https://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File:MegaAction_UK_11.pdf&page=7 "it missed the road"
Cool. I went on one of these in what must have been 1991. It was the local heat for the nationwide Sega championships. The game was Thunderblade for the Master System, and the aim was to score as many points in a set amount of time (something like 5 minutes). If this had been held a year earlier I would have probably won, as I used to be able to get quite far into that game without missing any enemies. Unfortunately I already had a Mega Drive by then and hadn't played the Master System for quite some time. I was quite rusty, so didn't go through to the next heat.
I guess I must have gone on "RCH 280R", here it is in 1991, going by the shape of the back. And here's "Mystery Bus" "C648 FTT" in it's previous lives;
I went on an In-2-Action bus at Longleat myself, in May 1995 - ah, memories... The plate of MYSTERY BUS itself can give us some info - it was registered between the 1st of August 1985 and 31st of July 1986, and TT is the code for Exeter. (Hence North Devon, makes sense) I have one potential source that may be able to give some information that's not held directly on the DVLA website - I'll report back if I get anything else. EDIT: Said inquiry is now undergoing, but in the meantime I've just made an interesting discovery. I went back and looked in my photo albums - Overlord aged 10 took photographs of the left and right side of the In-2-Action bus that he went on: Putting aside the 32X paint job - these are different enough in shape to https://segaretro.org/File:SegaIn2Action_Bus_RCH280R.jpg - and SIMILAR enough to C648 FTT, look at the rear venting grill placements above the two rear left wheels and behind the rear right ones - that I think this is MYSTERY BUS, so Sega must still have had it in May 1995. I have updated the In-2-Action page accordingly.
Great find! RCH 280R also at Longleat, but 1990. C648 FTT North Devon livery was dated 1986, so from new. National Express livery was dated 1989. The last mentions I can find of a Sega bus are "The Sega Saturn Challenge Bus" throughout the summer of 1997. I presume that this was still C648 FTT, as their marketing budget probably didn't stretch to buying new buses (the panels look pretty beaten even in 1995). I don't think Sega Europe did any significant marketing after this, and pretty much shut up shop in 1998, so I'd guess that it was sold/scrapped in 1998. It's a shame we can't quite see the plate for the write off.
Probably worth pointing out - I made that wiki page before I learnt there was more than one tour, so it may need a rethink. This is the 1994 "in 2 action" livery for MYSTERY BUS (from Sonic the Comic - all scans suck).
Write off: JOV 750P Code (Text): JOV 750P new to West Midlands PTE: Alexander AV, H44/35F, #4750 V50 10/87 EW bought by London Buses: into store (Edgware) 11/87 HD into service, Harrow Buses for 114, 140, 183, 340 2/88 HD 1988 HD used on 183 1989 HD 11/90 HD withdrawn.. 11/90 FW ..into store (Fulwell) 3/91 sold to Wombwell Diesels by 9/94 bought by CBH Partners, SW1: mobile exhibition unit for Sega Games 9/94 bought by Black Prince, Morley 10/94 sold to Ripley (Carlton)
Double post - I've split this off into a seperate thread because there's enough posts to warrant it. A tl;dr of what we've found, correct me if I've fucked up somewhere. There are three Sega buses, all of which were at the British Grand Prix in 1993: JOV 750P - A Volvo, first registered 1976, operating for Sega as early as Dec 1991 in Glasgow, taken off the road following a crash near Macclesfield around March 1994. RCH 280R - Built by Leyland in November 1976 but badged as a Daimler, initially used by Derby City Transport before being retired from service for promotion. Was used by Sega as early as summer 1990. Converted (though not re-painted) for double-decker bus racing, where it competed in 1999, reportedly on the road as late as 2009 and may still exist, has not been taxed since September 2013. C648 FTT - A MCW Metroliner, registered 1985/1986 in Exeter, operated for North Devon Expressway from new and National Express from 1989, first seen for Sega at the Grand Prix, definitely still in service May 1995, possibly as late as summer 1997, final fate unknown, but my source says it might have been bought by a London bus exporter based in Lydney...
Good summary. A happy ending for RCH 280R, unfortunately I couldn't find the location. Initial livery (this one's dated 1978); I guess it stayed with Derby until Sega bought it in 1990, at least I can't find any other bus spotter photos of it. Then we have a gap from 1995 - 1999 when it showed up bus racing. 2003; It has been put back into use for something in the meantime... maybe a charity? 2013; It sold on Ebay. Whilst the listing is long gone, there is a webpage with it for sale. Wayback machine archived it at the very beginning of 2014, so probably the same person who put it on Ebay. "gogaming.co.uk" was registered in 2003, so it looks like it spent 10 years in this livery, it was like the Sega bus but with PS2s. 2015 and it's off the road as a rather nice kids library/reading room;
Also https://www.google.com/maps/@54.921...213.06378&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656 found it. It's a permanent feature of a primary school just south of Newcastle (which means it's not far away from me). https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/aboard-book-bus-highfield-primary-8195125 It is the work of children's author David Almond.
Don't be afraid to upload lots of photographs from their other lives either. We will document the hell out of these buses. Because this is what our lives have become.
I'm not sure if there's anything I can really add to this but... Last year I actually did a mini documentary on these busses. (it's one of my early vids so it's a little rough in parts). Some of the video clips in there I don't have the precise links to, however the credits does include the sources of the media if anyone wants to trawl through it to find specifics. Though the vid does have a few tid bits which I've since learnt, such as all 3 busses appeared at the Radio 1 Roadshow, Sonic Tails and Knuckles appeared on the stage at one point like some kind of rock stars. There was one thing I did find which I've not seen in the thread... This bus/van. I could not find very much on this at all, but I believe it was the inspiration for the Sega Bus roadshows. Two basis for that. 1: If you look at the games and the list of games to the left of the image, they're all Master System titles, no 16bit era titles. 2: The van is called "Sega In Action" Whereas the more well known ones were the "Sega in 2 Action" busses. Also the bus that ended up doing the racing, it did actually race with the Sega colours. However the graphics were removed from windows, I suspect this was a safety reason. There is another Sega Bus which might be wiki worthy... This one. So that one did a few tours late last year, though it's got a bit of a crazy history to it. It's owned by a gaming group and they normally license it out to GAME who decorate it for big game releases, in the past its been a Mario, Tomb Raider and even Pokemon themed bus.
Atoll Soft was the distributor in Benelux. I can see Castle of Illusion on the top left screen, that released in 1991. The UK Sega bus started in 1990 for the 1991 Sega Challenge. There was a Sega Challenge the previous year (89-90), but the bus wasn't mentioned. I guess that they got the bus so that they didn't have to set up/pack up all of the kit at every event. I went on it in 1991, just Master System games. They probably upgraded it with Mega Drives after the 1991 Challenge finished. Here's the 1990-91 livery; Good video BTW.
