page_title: ACE Cougar
section_title: Production and operations
hierarchical_section_title: ACE Cougar / Production and operations
caption_attribution_description: English: Caves Bus Services J921 TUK, an ACE Cougar with Willowbrook bodywork, operating route 149 in Solihull in April 1994. This was the second of two Cougars built in the early 1990s. Caves closed down in 1999 following the death of one of its proprietors.
context_page_description: The ACE Cougar was a type of midibus built by Alternative Chassis Engineering in England in the early 1990s. It did not prove successful and only two were built.
context_section_description: The Cougar was built in ACE's factory in Huddersfield being launched in October 1990. The first Cougar was bodied by Wadham Stringer and sold to People's Provincial in 1990. Provincial director James Freeman saw the vehicle as a possible replacement for the company's large fleet of Leyland Nationals, but in the event only one was delivered. It was the only full-size bus bought new by Provincial as an independent company following privatisation in 1987. Provincial was taken over by First Hampshire & Dorset in 1995, the Cougar remaining in service until 2004. It has been preserved.
  The second carried Willowbrook Warrior bodywork (a body rarely applied to new vehicles). It was completed in 1991 and was initially painted in a demonstrator livery, but was sold to West Midlands independent Caves Bus Services later in the year. Caves closed down in June 1999 and the Cougar was sold to a private owner on Valentia Island.
caption: The Willowbrook ACE Cougar operating in Solihull with Caves Bus Services in April 1994
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