Drug home a 1952 GMC PD-4103 bus. Hope to get it back on the road someday. Also have a 1937 Ford school bus I need to retrieve still. Hoping to make a house car out of the 37.
Yeah , what a lot of work . I had an Ansair Flxble Clipper for a while , started a roof raise , it was ok until Mrs figured it was a 20yr project , and she wanted to go on holiday "now" ..... Bought my old 1958 Bedford SB3 back , we've done about 70,000 kms in it , currently I m in the process of procrastinating on finishing the repower .
Yeah , the Flx is a stunning art deco piece . There is a restored one still in intermittent use at Founders Park in Nelson . http://www.omnibus.org.nz/buslocation/ansair/newmans23.html
Yeah , I love the red Flx , and look at the work gone into the yellow Ford ....... There is a , umm , Commer I think , locally , blown something in it
I love the red one. Guy close to me has or had, not sure if he's still got it, an old 50's Greyhound. Used it for his Gospel singing group, had it fixed up some. I think he had a good bit of trouble out of the Detroit Diesel and the Allison transmission. Both probably needed a rebuild, but he was cheap, just kept it patched up as best he could.
I'm in the process of restoring this one. I have no idea what it's out of, specifically, but I'm feeling the vibes of a mid-1950's full size bus. Any ideas? All of those holes underneath the plastic (or lucite or whatever it's made out of) are lights. It measures about 17" X 7". Right now I have it painted a metallic bronze. The plastic piece is actually in pretty nice shape. The GM Coach thing is painted that silver & red on the back...that's not chrome. After I polish the plastic piece, I'll probably touch up the red on "coach" & back paint the plastic black & use some period black faced Stewart-Warner gauges.
I had a couple. First I bought a pair of '53 White school busses we painted one in and out and after driving it for a while decided it drove like a road grader. Next was a 1947 Flexible Clipper. Great bus which had been converted in the late '60s in the natural wood travel travel trailer-style interior. Powered by a 409 with a Clark 5 speed it was a lot of fun to drive.
Ive been thinking about doing the same thing. Pulling the front caps off and welding on a house trailer hitch. Ive got 4 storage Buses. a 61 international. A 52 ford. A 66 chevy and a 68 ford. I plant to move over to our other place. and I could just pull them that three miles with a farm tractor. I brought them in with a 3/4 ton 64 chevy.
I had a good friend who traveled with the carnivals all up and down the east coast for over 35 years who asked me to make all new cabinets for his old Greyhound Bus motor home. I was surprised when I started counting all the door and drawers in the bus. This bus had a total of something like 45 cabinet doors and about 30 drawers to make. Once I realized that the original cabinets were glued and screwed to the round shape ceiling of the bus I told my friend it would be very expensive to remove all the old cabinets without damaging the walls and then remaking all the cabinets to fit the round shape of the roof area. I told him to let me re-laminate all of the fronts of the cabinets and then I will make all New doors and drawers and laminate them and he liked that idea better then removing the existing cabinets. Since the cabinet boxes were a dark laminate I used an Almond Color laminate for the cabinet boxes, doors, and drawer fronts and it really looked great with this combination. Jimbo
this is mine , orig 1 of the two that Utah parks bought to run tourist through the parks, orig motor buick straight 8 and stick shift, now runs a Detroit diesel and a Allison trans
I love buses. I've got a 1958 International that my family used as a beach house full time in the summer for the past 4 years on Cape Cod. That was fun. I also have a 1952 White short bus that has some serious rot that I've been picking away at. Has some fire truck stuff on it. Just bought a carb for it cause the one I had was damages. Runs good.
I love that 52 White. With the sides opened up like that it almost looks like something from the circus where you'd have some bars coming down and separating the driver from the"viewing platform" . I can almost see a lion pacing around....
I have these two. One is a Dix body on a 1933 Ford BB chassis. Saved it out of a closed up junk yard that was being cleared out about 20 years ago. The other is a body built in Garland, Texas after WW II by the Southern Aircraft Co. I saw it setting some distance out in a pasture after I stopped at a yard sale and was able to buy it. It has an all aluminum body and is on a Diamond T chassis. The front of the chassis was torched of along time ago when it was converted to a storage box. Still has a truck sized Ross steering box and column in it. A friend who I got to know in the last 25 years or so worked there and as soon as he saw the bus he told me that he built the fixtures and jigs that the body was assembled on . He has since passed away at close to 90 years old. Going to be moving soon and even tho I am using them for storage, I might let them go if someone wanted to resurrect one or both of them. I think either one could be shortened.