Ikarus 280T

The Ikarus 280T is the trolleybus version of the Ikarus 280 articulated bus. The bodies came from the Ikarus body and vehicle factory, while the electrical equipment was designed by various firms. At first the electronics of scrapped ZiU trolleybuses were reused, and in the end most new vehicles carried equipment developed at the Ganz Electric Works. The first example appeared on the streets of Budapest in 1976 with ZiU-5 equipment, and 77 more followed by 1978, a few of them built differently to test ideas such as self-propelled running. Szeged and Debrecen also bought Ikarus trolleybuses. The largest customer was Bulgaria, which received 151 Ganz-equipped vehicles for Sofia between 1985 and 1989, while East Germany ordered 150 but took only 55 after political change. Prototypes were tried in France, Austria, Switzerland, Mexico and several American cities, and buses rebuilt as trolleybuses with Ikarus bodies ran in Poland, North Korea and the Soviet Union.