About West Coast Motors

The home of the family owned business known as West Coast Motors is Campbeltown, familiarly known as “the Wee Toon”, at the southern end of Argyllshire’s Kintyre peninsula. The wording West Coast Motors first appeared in November 1922 as a fleetname but evidence indicates that John Craig came to Fort Argyll, Campbeltown in late 1916 and purchased an Alldays & Onions car which was probably used for hiring in the locality. His brothers, William & David followed and the three Craig brothers then founded a motor engineering and garage business in the town’s Longrow. The Craigs’ first venture into the world of regular passenger transport came in 1921 with the introduction of a daily service to the fishing village of Tarbert, a 38 mile journey to the northern end of Kintyre. This was operated with an Albion and one-ton Fords, converted from wartime wagons to primitive fourteen seaters, and ran in tandem with an identical service provided by McConnachie of Campbeltown, a company that provided much competition over the next 50 years until 1970 when West Coast acquired this rival firm.

The present network of services throughout Argyll and beyond has been built up over the years by a number of other acquisitions including Sommerville of Campbeltown in 1936, providing the Carradale service; McKerral of Southend in 1938, with services to Southend and Macharioch; Dickie Brothers of Tarbert in 1949 provided the inter-boat service between East and West Lochs at Tarbert; Mceachern of Kilberry with the Kilberry service in the mid 1970s. McColl of Benderloch sold out in 1982 with their service from Benderloch to Oban. In 1986 the services previously operated by Stag Garage from Lochgilphead to Ormsary and to Kilmartin and Ford joined the fold. 1987 saw the acquisition of the garage premises in Ardrishaig owned by Western SMT but originally occupied by MacBraynes. This provided a valuable base for the mid-Argyll services and also the trunk Campbeltown-Ardrishaig-Glasgow service operated on behalf of Scottish Citylink from 1986.

A major fleet expansion took place in 1999 when Oban & District services were acquired, operating a variety of both town and country services. Further consolidation in this area took place in 2005 when the Oban to Dalavich service of L.F. Stewart & Sons of Dalavich was taken over.

Services on the Island of Bute based at Rothesay and in the Cowal peninsula based at Dunoon were taken over from Stagecoach in 2004, whilst the most recent acquisitions have been Glasgow Citybus Ltd (January 2006) of Scotstoun, operating local routes in Glasgow’s north-western suburbs and Henderson Hiring of Tarbert, Loch Fyne (April 2006), operating two services, Skipness - Lochgilphead and Kilberry - Tarbert.

Since the inception of the business West Coast Motors has remained privately owned by the Craig family and from modest beginnings in the early 1920s, the fleet has grown to an impressive total of 135 buses and coaches, 5 vans used for Post Office contracts and approximately 286 employees.

Fleet livery, as seen from the accompanying photographs, has always been red and cream, initially with maroon relief but more recently with blue relief.

Various makes of bus have been purchased over the years, including Albion, Ford, Chevrolet, Bedford, Morris, Oldsmobile, Reo, and Leyland. In service today are 8 Leyland Leopard, 1 Leyland Tiger, 1 Leyland-DAF 400, 4 Leyland Titan, 3 Volvo Citybus, 5 Volvo B10M coaches, 2 Volvo B10M Duple 300, 25 Dennis Dart, 1 Ford Transit, 1 MAN, 29 DAF rear engined coaches, 9 Optare, 20 Mercedes, 4 DAF SB 220 and 14 VDL (formerly DAF) low floor service buses. The Leyland Titan and Volvo Citybus vehicles were the first double-deckers to operate for the company, having been acquired with the former Stagecoach services in Cowal. 18 DAF and VDL coaches are finished in the livery of Scottish Citylink Coaches Ltd, with whom a close working relationship has been steadily built up. Long distance services on their behalf are operated from Glasgow to Campbeltown, Oban, Dundee, Edinburgh, Fort William, Inverness and the Isle of Skye. Accordingly, in 1996 a base was established in Glasgow for operation of the company’s share in the Citylink network, as well as an input from the rural depots. The largest depot, with over 30 vehicles, is Oban, which has seen considerable expansion since the acquisition of the former Oban & District town and suburban services. Route extensions and frequency improvements have encouraged new custom in this area, and further expansion is envisaged for the future throughout the West Coast territory.