The Mark I

At first, I was happy to have just a mkII, I had not been on a mark I merc for years. Then in May 2007, there was a tour to celebrate the 30 years of Mercedes Benz O305's in Sydney. I started to think that having a mark I would not be such a bad thing. Then I pondered it further, thinking that having the first Kingsgrove O305 would be good.
I did some research using the fleetlist, turns out Kingsgrove's allocation was 1916 through to 1965 (except 1951). 1916 had become MO 2029 at Fearnes, I thought if the opportunity presented itself, I'd try and get it.

A few months passed, I had gone a purchased 2413, early in 2007 I set aside a portion of funds that I though I could get a mkII with and maybe have some left over. Anyway, the purchase of 2413 only took up half the amount I set aside. Then a week or so after RC drew my attention to the Fearnes coaches website, they had mkI's for sale, plus a Leyland Leopard that he wanted. Then AH and SW headed down to Wagga Wagga, they were able to test drive whatever they wanted, I asked if they could give MO 2029 a go. It was started and it did not sound good at all, after all were tested, I was told that MO 1964 along with MO 0304 were goers. RC ended up wanting to get a mkI as well, then AH ended up purchasing one of the companies last Worldmasters - the last to be donated to the Sydney Bus Museum. As it turned out I had enough funds for this. So I decided to go with the advice given and purchase MO 1964 - ex 1930.

MO 1964, ex m/o 1930 at the Fearnes depot in Wagga Wagga NSW late August 2007, Andy Lee

Now....there were four buses purchased, only one word to describe their trasnfer

CONVOY!

"APEC weekend" 2007 was the weekend decided on, since the metro area had a public holiday and the other parts of NSW it was business as usual. So, we all went down on the Friday morning and since it was a normal day in Wagga Wagga, we were able to sort out unregistered vehicle permits at the RTA office that day. This meant we could take all the buses back to Sydney on the Saturday.
For more info on the trip, read my post on the ATDB
http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25310&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=wagga+wagga

The whole experience was great, the people at Fearnes were excellent and very accommodating. A shame there aren't more like them around anymore....