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In late 1988 & 1990 area Designline & Coachwork International were still building SL202's model buses so Designline & Coachwork talk to ARA and CTB for new look for bigger buses for bigger loads for suburban work loads or Charter groups loads to take people for sightseeing & outdoor tours and odd the Pub Crawl to hotels.
In 1988 Designline made the very 1st MAN Triaxle City Bus and went to many bus operators around New Zealand and then later on the Trail from Designline a Bus Company called Simpsons now part of Gobus Family now Today in Huntly in North Island like the looks of this new MAN bus so did the Christchurch Transport Board now Called Redbus Christchurch.
Auckland didn't wanted Designline MAN 22.240's because was too slow around Streets around Auckland and Suburbs.
ARA Ordered there MAN 22.240 's from batch of Chassis's from Auckland shipment bound for Designline and made there 22.240's from there bodies of left over from MAN SL202's in 1989 for ARA.
ARA Design was like SL202 but was stretch longer with same looks inside of SL202's and called them SL243.
Designline Made the 1st 22.240 look like a Suburban Coach look like bus and sold to Simpsons Bus co in Huntly in late 1988 but CTB was closed to buy this bus.
Around late 1989 Designline got the chassis's in CTB depot in Christchurch from Auckland Shipment and chassis's went to Designline Ashburton Coach and & Bus Plant in little town of Ashburton in Canterbury Plains now Designline relocated to
Rolleston into new Business District for Canterbury now Designline was renamed to
Designline Bus Pacific.
Early 1990 very 1st 22.240 for CTB was number 672 when Designline middle orders of making of little MAN buses for Dunedin and Christchurch little MAN 10.150's and 10.100 Series.
Christchurch Transport Board ordered 8 of these MAN 22.240's for Big loads around Canterbury plains and Suburban Work also 1 of MAN 22.240's went to Christchurch for Suburb work for Christchurch International Airport until 2002 when Redbus ordered new MAN Designline SLF buses.
Some of CTB's 22.240's are sold to Gobus,Leopard,NCS, and Kiwi bus Charters in Auckland from retirement of Christchurch.
Auckland SL243's are some relocated to Wellington and few being scrapped
ARA MAN SL243's are well known as NZ's best operational diesel buses.They were ordered by the ARA in 1989 for the Commonwealth Game 1990 also to supplement the SG240 artics.