Many of you, I'm sure, will regard the classic products of Old Mother Leyland as works of art and may be thrilled to learn that a new art installation in Australia represents one of her finest Worldmasters. Basil Hancock, who keeps us abreast of developments in his adopted country, discovered it while walking in the central square of the city of Parramatta in greater Sydney. At 8m - 26ft 3in - long, A Place of Eels is an almost full-size sculpture of a 1960s Worldmaster in the Department of Government Transport (DGT) fleet, placed on end in a concrete base and finished in polished aluminium to act like a mirror to reflect people gathering around it. As Basil explains, DGT buses never ventured as far west as Parramatta, but in 1981 the then coach of the Parramatta Eels rugby team bought such a vehicle for team meetings after a fire wrecked the home base. The sculpture is the work of Sydney artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro and was based not on an actual bus but a l:76-scale scale model of a Sydney Worldmaster, which was scanned in 3D and scaled up. It took more than 45 people and 6,500hr to create the moulds, castings and finishing pieces of the 7.6tonne steel and aluminium structure which is possibly even heavier than the original Leyland. At around ￡4million it may be the most expensive non-working bus in the world.
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