Due to a particular public transport system with the bus drivers being the owners of their vehicles, Malta has become famous for its old-fashioned buses, mostly of British origin, which remained in service for many decades and featured particularities such as highly polished chrome parts and other embellishments, as well as missing passenger doors in order to provide fresh air. Although these classic Malta buses have been out of service since 2011, scale models of them are still a popular souvenir from the archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. Malta buses can thus be found in the ranges of notable model manufacturers such as Corgi, Oxford Diecast, Britbus and Ixo (for European partworks), but there are also some more toy-like items, e.g. from Sunnyside. A local company distributing model buses is Leaf. Its best known product is a diecast model of a Bedford OB bus from the 1940s with Maltese bodywork in about 1/50th scale. According to the information on the box, the model was designed in Malta by Alexsandro, and it was made in China. It is most commonly seen in the yellow and white livery of Malta buses from the 1990s, but other versions are also available, namely a grey and white bus as used on the island of Gozo, and a green bus as used in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition to the Bedford models, Leaf also released other Malta bus models, including a Mercedes-Benz bus from the 1960s.
Malta