Information On Flxible

Image:Flx on J20.jpg parked in Washington, D.C. ] The Flxible Co. (originally the Flexible Sidecar Company was a motorcycle sidecar, funeral car, ambulance, intercity coach and transit bus manufacturing company based in the United States that was founded in 1913, and which closed in 1996.

History

Image:Buick Flxible Hearse.jpg In 1913, Hugo H. Young and Carl F. Dudte founded the Flexible Sidecar Co. in Loudonville, Ohio to manufacture motorcycle sidecars with a flexible mounting to the motorcycle The flexible mounting allowed the sidecar to lean on corners along with the motorcycle, and was based on a design patented by Young. In 1919, the companys name was changed to The Flxible Co. (still pronounced "flexible") so that the name could be registered as a trademark After low-priced automobiles became available in the 1920s, the motorcycle sidecar demand dropped and in 1924, Flxible turned to production of hearse and ambulance , which were primarily manufactured on Buick chassis, but also occasionally on Studebaker Cadillac and REO Motor Car Company chassis, and Coach (vehicle) initially (1930s and early 40s) built on GMC truck chassis, and powered with Buick Straight 8 engines. Image:1947 Flxible Clipper.jpg In 1953, Flxible absorbed the bus manufacturing portion of the Fageol Twin Coach Company, and accepted its first order for transit buses from the Chicago Transit Authority In 1964, Flxible purchased Southern Coach Manufacturing Co. of Evergreen, Alabama and built small transit bus s at the former Southern Coach factory until 1976. Flxible was purchased by Rohr, Inc. in 1970, and a new factory and corporate headquarters were built in Delaware, Ohio in 1974, with the original factory in Loudonville, Ohio being used to manufacture parts and sub-assemblies. Flxible was sold to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in 1978 and became known as Grumman Flxible The name reverted to Flxible when Grumman sold the company in 1983 to General Automotive Corporation. In 1996, Flxible declared bankruptcy and its assets were auctioned. The last Flxible vehicles produced were eight Compressed Natural Gas fueled Metro buses that went to Monterey-Salinas Transit in Monterey, California California The former Flxible factory in Loudonville, Ohio is now a bus maintenance facility for Motor Coach Industries while the former factory in Delaware, Ohio is now a parts facility for North American Bus Industries

Production outside the USA

Image:Mexico-DINA-coach-2.jpg Flxliner bus, in second-class service, berthed in the Silao Guanajuato central terminal, 2006.]] Image:BeijingBus-X10209.jpg China showing the similarity to the Flxible Metro.]] Flxibles intercity buses were very popular in Mexico and in Latin American countries. However, high import duties into these countries limited sales. In the early 1960s, Flxible began licensing a producer in Mexico, DINA S.A. (Diesel Nacional), to manufacture Flxible designed intercity coaches, and this continued until the late 1980s. In 1965 and 1966, Flxible also licensed its "New Look" transit bus design to Canadair an aircraft manufacturer in Saint-Laurent (borough) In 1994, Flxibles parent company, General Automotive Corporation, and three other American companies, Penske Corporation Mark IV Industries, and Carrier Corporation entered into a joint venture with Changzhou Changjiang, a China manufacturer in Jiangsu to produce buses based on the Flxible Metro design and with the Flxible name. The resulting company, China Flxible Auto Corporation, manufactured buses in a variety of lengths, from to These buses, which include both front- and rear-engine designs, and share only their general exterior appearance with the American-built Flxibles, are used by many transit operators in major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai

Charles Kettering and General Motors

Image:Charles F. Kettering.jpg Charles Kettering a Loudonville, Ohio native and vice president of General Motors was closely associated with Flxible for almost the entire first half of the companys existence. In 1914, Flxible was incorporated with the help of Kettering, who then became president of the company and joined the board of directors. Kettering provided significant funding for the company in its early years, particularly after 1916, when Kettering sold his firm, the Delco Electronics to GM for $2.5 million. Kettering continued to serve as president of Flxible, until he became chairman of the board in 1940, a position he held until his death in 1958. After selling Delco to GM in 1916, Kettering organized and ran a research laboratory at GM, and by the 1950s, held the position of vice president at GM. As a result of Ketterings close relationship with both GM and Flxible, many GM parts were used in the production of Flxible vehicles, particularly prior to GMs 1943 purchase of Yellow Coach (a competing bus manufacturer, of which GM had been a majority owner since 1925). For example, most Flxible ambulance , hearse , and buses from the mid-1920s to the early-1940s were built on Buick chassis, and Flxibles "Airway" model buses of the mid-1930s were built on a Chevrolet chassis. Image:1955 Flxible VL100.jpg In 1958, and as a result of the consent decree from the 1956 anti-trust case, United States v. General Motors Corp. GM was mandated to sell their bus components, engines, and transmissions to other manufacturers, free of royalties. However, in the early 1950s and prior to the consent decree, Flxible built a small number of buses with GM diesel engine while Kettering still served on the board. It has been postulated that GM may have made its diesel engines available to Flxible to reduce the criticisms of GMs business practices that some felt were Monopoly McKane, John H. & Squier, Gerald L. (2006), 17. The same has been said about GMs decision in the 1960s and 1970s not to produce a "New Look" transit bus with an 8-cylinder engine However, it is also possible that GM chose not to enter this market because the potential sales did not warrant the added costs of engineering and production.McKane, John H. & Squier, Gerald L. (2006), 58. Another result of the consent decree (which was not settled in its entirety until 1965) was that GM was barred from having any of its officers or directors serve as an officer or director for any other bus manufacturing company. This provision would have applied to Kettering, had he not died in 1958.

870 frame problems

In the mid-1980s, several MTA New York City Transit 870 buses developed cracks in their underframes. This prompted then-president David L. Gunn to remove the entire fleet from service. Soon, several other companies reported cracked 870 frames. However, the frame issues primarily only affected NYCT 870s and not the 870s owned by NYCDOT (New York City Department of Transportation) franchised carriers. NYCT (New York City Transit) attempted to get the remainder of its pending order for new buses transferred to GM, but was barred from doing so unless they could prove that the 870s were flawed and unsafe. The buses were eventually returned to Flxible and resold to Queen City Metro and New Jersey Transit Bus Operations Grumman blamed the problems with the NYCT 870s on NYCTs maintenance practices, despite Chicagos RTA (now PACE (transit) , Washington, D.C. s Metrobus (Washington, D.C.) Houston METRO and Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority also reporting problems with their 870s. Ironically, NYCT ordered fifty Metros in 1995 but Flxible closed its doors while the order was being produced, and NYCT obtained the remaining new buses from Orion Bus Industries

Flxible Owners International

Image:FLXemblm.jpg Flxible Owners International (see external link) was founded in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the Family Motor Coach Association and is dedicated to the preservation of buses and coaches produced by Flxible. The organization holds a rally in Loudonville, Ohio every even year, normally in mid-July, where many preserved Flxible coaches and buses may be seen.lt;/ref>lt;/ref> The majority of vehicles owned by members are of the Clipper series (Clipper, Visicoach, Starliner) that were produced from the 1930s until 1967. However, there are also quite a few "non-clipper" Flxible coaches that are owned, maintained, and operated by proud Flxible owners. This includes the Starliner, VL100 (VistaLiner), Hi Level, and Flxliner as well as some of the more modern transit buses. Most of these vehicles have been converted to motor homes however, there are still a few examples of seated coaches belonging to members.

Products

Image:Unitrans 4916.jpg Flxible New Look bus ]] *Motorcycle sidecar (1913-early 1920s) *Intercity coach (1924-1932) *Funeral car (1924-1942, 1946-1952, 1959-1964) *Ambulance (1924-1964) *"Airway" intercity coach (1932-1936) *"Clipper" intercity coach (1937-1942, 1944-1950) *Parts for Liberty ship , M4 Sherman F4U Corsair and Goodyear "L" type Non-rigid airship (1942-1945) *"Airporter" intercity coach (1946-1950) *"C-1" intercity coach (1950) *"VisiCoach" intercity coach (1950-1958) *FL "Fageoliner" transit bus (1953-1954) *FT "Flxible Twin" transit bus (1953-1959) *VL-100 "VistaLiner" two-level intercity coach (1954-1959) *"StarLiner" intercity coach (1957-1967) *"Hi-Level" intercity coach (1959-1962) *"Clipper Eagle" intercity coach (1960) *Flxible New Look bus (1960-1978) *"FlxLiner" intercity coach (1963-1969) *"Flxette" light duty transit bus (1964-1976) *"Flxible" Cruiser Motor Home (1967-1969) *Flxible Metro transit bus (1978-1983) *Flxible Metro (1983-1995); METRO "A" (1983-1987), METRO "B" (1988-1991), METRO "C" (1992), METRO "D" (1993-1994) and METRO "E" (1995-1996)

References

External links

*http://busexplorer.com/PHP/FeaturePage.php?id24 Images of Flxible buses in busexplorer.com] *http://flxibleowners.org Flxible Owners International, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Flxible buses and coaches] Category:Companies established in 1912 Category:Defunct bus manufacturers Category:Companies disestablished in 1996

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