Lancashire United Transport (LUT) once operated an extensive network of bus services in the Bolton, Atherton, Leigh, Wigan and Swinton areas of Greater Manchester but in 1976 were absorbed into Greater Manchester Transport. For many years, LUT buses operated into Blackpool on the popular X60 and X70 services from Manchester and these ran very frequently in the summer months until the 1970s when car ownership increased dramatically.

Typical of double deck purchases from 1942 until 1967 were traditional Guy Arab buses, mainly with bodywork built locally by Northern Counties of Wigan. There were a few exceptions with LUT flirting with Daimler, Dennis and Leyland chassis in small quantities but generally the company remained faithful to Guy until they ceased bus chassis construction.

LUT were also generally faithful to Northern Counties products but in 1960/61 purchased a batch of ten Guy Arabs with Metro-Cammel bodywork because Northern Counties were very busy and couldn’t fulfill all of LUT’s requirements.

Nos. 40-49 had somewhat mundane lives with LUT, except perhaps for No. 40 that was rebuilt with a front entrance body by Northern Counties after severe accident damage. Only four of the batch passed with the LUT business into Greater Manchester Transport ownership in 1976 and the last of these was withdrawn in 1978. No. 43 was withdrawn in 1977 and passed into the care of a private preservationist who later moved the bus to Norwich. It was completely repainted in 1996 and returned to the North West for the 90th anniversary of LUT, attending events organised by the Manchester Museum of Transport.

43 finally returned to action in May 2006 in time to appear at the LUT100 weekend event at the Manchester Museum of Transport. Now that 43 has returned to the road, further improvement work is planned for 43. This will include interior tidying up and will hopefully culminate in a complete repaint.