I have just remembered seeing an Inner Circle 8 bus, which was approaching the traffic lights at the Spring Hill/Monument Road junction, which looked a little different. This was bus HOV 803 (1803). It was one of 85 Daimler buses introduced in 1948, the final ones in January 1949. Their engines were a development of some that were trialled with some of the city's wartime buses. The engines were 6" shorter than other Daimlers and that enabled to lengthen the rear platform by 6".. The first 32 of the batch were the last, it seems to have handrails across the upstairs front windows, later buses had them fitted beneath the windows.
Bus 1843, when new, was exhibited at the 1948 Commercial Motor Show and 1822 was displayed at a British Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark in late summer 1948.
Now returning to bus 1803, the oddity I saw in Monument Road in 1949, I observed that it not only had the usual destination box at the front of the bus, it sported the three track route numbers above - as would be seen on all the 'new look' fronted buses introduced in 1950. Although the bus entered service in 1948 just over a year later in July 1949 it re-entered service with the modifications. This was an odd man out, so as to speak and was used as as an experiment initially visiting many BCT garages in order to acquaint the crews with what was to come.
Sister bus 1805 is seen here, 1803 had the route number above the normal box display in the manner of the 75 route bus following.