Carpenter Body Company
Carpenter Body Company, also known over the years as the Ralph H. Carpenter Body Company, Carpenter Body Works, Inc., Carpenter Manufacturing Company, Carpenter Industries, Inc., and Crown By Carpenter, was a bus body builder based in Mitchell, Indiana, United States that started building buses in 1923. Years later, Carpenter purchased rights to build Crown Coach Buses, and in the late 1990s, relocated to the former Wayne Corporation plant in Richmond, Indiana.
Carpenter was a leading name in church bus and school bus safety efforts for many years. The company became a major school bus body builder in the post-World War II period.
In 2000, it closed down and ended school bus production. After relocating to the former Wayne plant, Carpenter began to base many of its buses such as the "Classic 2000" on some of the designs used earlier on buses built in the plant by Wayne Corporation, utilizing certain features of the Wayne Lifeguard design. [1]
History
The organization which built Carpenter branded bus bodies was founded in Mitchell, Indiana in 1919 by Ralph H. Carpenter, a blacksmith by trade. He began his career building hauling wagons for two cement factories located near his southern Indiana hometown of Bloomington.
As his business grew, he began to expand into building horse-drawn "kid hacks" with wooden benches to transport children to school. As wagons became obsolete, he adapted his bodies for automobiles.
Carpenter's first true school bus was built in 1923. The first stop arms used on these buses were in the shape of a clenched fist with the index finger painted red. A combination of steel and wood replaced all wood construction and in 1935, a change to all-steel construction was made, joining Wayne Works and Blue Bird Body Company and others in this regard.
On March 12, 1956, a fire broke out inside Carpenter's Mitchell manufacturing plant. The plant was mostly destroyed. With the help of factory workers—some worked for no pay until later compensated—the factory was rebuilt and expanded in just 89 days.
Throughout the next twenty years, the business prospered and Carpenter became one of the "big six" major school bus body builders in the United States in the 1970s, competing directly against Blue Bird Body Company, Superior Coach Company, Thomas Built Buses, Inc., Ward Body Company, and Wayne Corporation.
In the early 1980s, there was a downturn in U.S. public school enrollments as the baby boom generation became older than school-age. U.S. school bus sales declined, a situation compounded by over-capacity in the bus body industry. The company unsuccessfully attempted to diversify into the small transit bus market. Carpenter was forced to enter bankruptcy in the mid-1980s.
In the early 1990s, Carpenter Industries (formerly Carpenter Body Company) purchased the tooling and product rights to build Crown Coaches, long a product of a defunct U.S. bus builder in California. Around 1996, Carpenter leased the former Wayne plant at Richmond, and moved from its aged facilities in Mitchell. At the former Wayne plant, the company began producing Crown by Carpenter buses and delivery trucks.
In late 1999, Carpenter unveiled a new model series to their line, called the Classic 2000 series. The Classic 2000 series featured an overall body redesign, including an entirely new driver's area (based on the Wayne Lifeguard), as well as new rubrail mounts, a flat rear section, and new roof caps. Conventional and FEs received larger rear emergency doors.
The 2000 Carpenter Chancellor RE rear-engine Type D school buses were built on Spartan chassis, featuring full air ride suspension, smaller wheels, and a double height frame for a ride similar to a motorcoach, as well as a flat floor inside the bus. The Chancellor series no longer included an option for a rear emergency door.
By 2000, Spartan Motors, primarily a specialty chassis manufacturer, owned the majority of Carpenter Industries. Despite the improved sales Carpenter had attained over the last few years, profitability continued to elude the body builder in the highly competitive U.S. and Canadian school bus markets. The body company was closed in mid-2001, ending a huge history in the bus business.
Models
School
Type A
Type B
Type C
- Classic (?-2001) - Dodge S-Series (?-1977), Ford B700 (1980-94) and B800 (1994-98), Freightliner FS-65 (1997–2001), GMC/Chevrolet B-Series (?-1992), International Harvester Loadstar (1962–78), S-series (1979–89) or Navistar International 3700/3800 (1989–2001) chassis
Type D FE
- Corsair (?-1983) - Oshkosh, International Harvester or Hendrickson chassis
- Cavalier (1983-1988) - International Harvester FC1853
- Counsellor (1989-99) - GMC S-7, Navistar International 3900 or Spartan chassis
- Chancellor (2000-01) - Spartan chassis
Type D RE
- Corsair (?-1991) - Hendrickson chassis
- Coach RE (1992-93) - Spartan chassis
- Counsellor (1994-99) - Spartan chassis
- Chancellor (2001 prototype) - Spartan chassis