00:00What made Maltese buses cultural icons?
00:03I cannot explain because it's something that I have been experiencing since I was a little boy.
00:09A once ubiquitous symbol of ingenuity and engineering now nearly vanished.
00:14You will not go anywhere in the world and you will see a Maltese bus.
00:18Restored with love by people with a passion for them.
00:22This is the story of Maltese.
00:30Hi, my name is Etienne Falzon. I am 50 years old.
00:33This is my bus. It's a 1950 Bedford. Our nickname is Bayadera.
00:39Bayadera is one of the few surviving examples of Malta's unofficial ambassador, the Maltese bus.
00:45Back in the day, these buses were the very lifeblood of the country's transportation,
00:50ferrying locals and tourists alike long before cars became the de facto mode of transportation.
00:56From 1814 to 1964, Malta was a British colony.
01:02In the early 1900s, a few buses were imported into Malta, primarily from England.
01:07But it was only after World War II that these gems of Maltese transportation were born.
01:13With limited manufacturing capacity, local innovation led to the invention of the Maltese bus.
01:19Each bus started out as a lorry or decommissioned military vehicle imported from England.
01:25Maltese coachbuilders converted them into full-fledged buses, building each by hand.
01:31Buses were privately owned, often by drivers themselves, and no two looked alike.
01:37With cabs of various makes and coaches built to the owner's specifications,
01:42each bus had its own unique personality.
01:44And till the early 70s, buses were also painted to reflect the route they plied.
01:49The Odin, these people, they didn't used to recognize numbers, so they painted the bus.
01:57Each color of the village it was.
02:02Balladera has been in Etienne's family for generations.
02:06He began driving the bus at 19.
02:08With drivers themselves usually owning the Maltese buses, they took special pride in their upkeep.
02:14A bus that looked nice could mean more passengers.
02:17And the driver-owner system meant buses weren't mass-produced.
02:21Instead, they were personalities on wheels.
02:24I like the noise of the engine.
02:27The noise.
02:27The noise of the engine is something that I cannot explain,
02:33because it's something that I have been experiencing since I was a little boy.
02:38With each bus dedicated to a specific route,
02:41drivers like Etienne tended to know their passengers quite well.
02:46People used to use us going for work, going for shopping,
02:50and things like that.
02:53So you used to get friends with people coming with passengers.
02:59So you miss them.
03:01Eventually, calls for progress and modernization
03:04signaled the death of Malta's quirky buses.
03:07In 2011, mass-produced King Long buses from China took over.
03:12Traditional bus owners were encouraged to give up their vehicles.
03:15By then, all painted a standard yellow in exchange for money.
03:19And pieces of Malta's transport history simply rotted away.
03:24While Etienne didn't give up Balladera,
03:27the bus rusted for several years until he finally decided to restore it.
03:31And it all happened at Skarnief Garage,
03:36one of Malta's last few remaining coachbuilders and restorers.
03:40Hi, Franz. Hi, Mauro. Hi, Moteo.
03:44Okay?
03:44Hi.
03:47Mauro and Francis Attard have a passion for preserving old Maltese buses,
03:52painstakingly rescuing them from the brink of extinction.
03:55Francis has been in the business for over 30 years.
03:58When I started with Skarnief, I built the first truck in the 1990s.
04:06I did the shape myself.
04:08I built everything myself by hand.
04:10And I started the first coach.
04:14While building and repairing low-floor buses is their bread and butter,
04:18it's restoration projects that truly require patience and ingenuity.
04:23Rebuilding a single bus can take around 18 months.
04:26There's nothing that we can buy completely ready and just install it.
04:32So everything is going to be done manually and created.
04:40Even sourcing taillights involves resourcefulness.
04:45So they used to be of a car, and then they were fitted in a bus.
04:49So it's not just something, I have a Thames, and these are the lights of the Thames.
04:53That's where they do them unique.
04:54Every curve and panel is shaped by hand,
04:58echoing an era when bus building involved as much carpentry as engineering.
05:03The aim is always the same.
05:04Now the philosophy and how we are restoring them
05:08is to get the original body into shape and available to the people.
05:16Seeing them gone, scrapped, with no use at all,
05:19it's something that hits you a big time, you know.
05:22With the buses once such a beloved part of Malta's cityscape,
05:26the calls for them to be resurrected have grown louder.
05:29Today, more old buses are being restored and put back into service as tour buses,
05:35giving people a taste of what once was.
05:37For Francis, coach building is his profession.
05:42For his son Mauro, it's a hobby driven by passion that he hopes to pass on to the next generation.
05:48And for owner-drivers like Etienne, preserving a piece of Malta's heritage is key.
05:53I am still happy that I saved this bus, you know, and we are still using it.
06:02After all, as Francis says,
06:05But it is very good, too. It is the story of Malta.
06:10Malta's buses, more than just wood, steel, and paint on wheels.
06:15A symbol of a country's ingenuity,
06:17and an enduring legacy of a time when the results of craftsmanship and creativity
06:22carried not just passengers, but the hopes and dreams of the Maltese people.
06:28Malta's buses, more than just wood, steel, and more than just wood, steel, and more than just wood, steel, and more than just wood.
Comments