(First posted 4/16/2016) In the 1960’s, if you heard the name “Flxible Flxette”, you’d probably think it was an act on the old Ed Sullivan Show. Actually it was Flxible’s entry into the small shuttle-bus market.
The Flxible Flxette was a light duty bus built from 1964 to 1976 by the Flxible Corporation, makers of the larger Clipper, Twin Coach, New Look, and StarLiner series of coaches. The Flxette was designed for small city and rural regional transit cooperatives, livery services, and other transport operators that didn’t need or couldn’t afford a regular heavy duty motor coach.
Flxible New Look 30 ft coach
As readers of CC know, dimensions for transit coaches in the US have been fairly constant over the past 60 years, mostly due to federal and state regulation. Widths are 96 and 102 inches, with lengths in the 30, 35 and 40 foot range. The smallest of these coaches, the 30 foot model, will typically seat 29 passengers.
In the early sixties, Flxible received inquiries on a coach smaller than their 30 foot New Look model; one with a shorter wheelbase able to navigate narrower, curvy roads, handle a smaller load of approximately 20 passengers, and perhaps most importantly, be significantly cheaper in price.
Evaluating all these factors, Flxible determined the best design would utilize an existing truck frame with a forward control (FC)/cab-over-engine body, maximizing interior space while limiting overall length.
Coach under construction at SCM Evergreen factory prior to Flxible purchase
Fortunately, Flxible had acquired the Southern Coach Manufacturing (SCM) Co. of Evergreen Alabama, a maker of buses and motor homes, in the early ‘60’s– and its production facilities provided a perfect fit to build this new coach. The first Flxette came down the Evergreen factory line in 1964. These coaches were approximately 96 inches wide, 20 feet in length and seated 19-23 passengers. Gross max vehicle weight was around 15,000 lbs.
Flexette from Aurora Transit – Chicago
Flxettes were a familiar sight across the US in the ’60’s and ’70’s – not only in small towns and rural areas, but in larger cities serving as a shuttle or in other types of livery service. Before the ubiquitous “cutaway” mini-buses seen at every airport today, Flxettes routinely ferried passengers between terminals, to their hotels, and to their rental cars.
Flxible was known for meeting customer’s specialized build-to-order requirements, and the Flxette continued that trend.
Ford 300 cu in Six
Chassis were sourced from existing manufacturers, mostly Ford, but Chevy and Dodge were used in later versions. The Ford 300 cubic inch six cylinder was the typical engine.
Federal safety regulations and the cutaway (which was cheaper) eventually spelled the end of the Flxette.
2021 Toyota Coaster 21 passenger minibus
Due to its cost advantages, the cutaway still reigns supreme in the US light duty bus market, however, overseas, where size and maneuverability are more important, small FC coaches are still popular.
Flxette’s certainly couldn’t be considered attractive or of particular high quality, but they had a competent, workman-like character. Service life was typically ten years, and while a few hung on, most were gone by the mid-1980’s.
I’ve never noticed these before. Is the Flxette the AMC Gremlin of the bus world?
I never thought of that, but that’s a pretty accurate comparison – that actually might have been a better title than “Junior Leaguer”……… Jim.
I’ve never seen, nor heard of these buses. They look small enough that anyone with a standard driver’s license can drive one.
Hi Carnut.
When I drove buses in Seattle, we had a Flexette that served Center Park, a senior citizen center located in Rainier Valley. It lasted for a while until it was replaced by a 35 foot Flyer that was retrofitted to carry a lot of wheelchair patrons.
Help! What is the reason for the protruding windscreens?
It’s a bit of a question. Clearly, Flxible was imitating the GM “fishbowl” front windshield on their “New Look” buses, which was a very influential design. I’d say it was really mostly a fad, with some possible visibility advantages. On the GM buses, the divisions between the glass sections was very thin, giving them superb visibility. On these, not so much so.
It might also have something to do with preventing reflections due to the interior lights. Engineer Hofstede, working for Werkspoor in the Netherlands, got a patent for his “antireflex windshield”. See Dutch bus below (photo courtesy of Smiley.toerist / Wikipedia).
It was to eliminate glare at night . ifirc the old look gm bus was the first to slant the windshield glass as to reduce glare and reflections at night
Flxette windshields were copied directly from the larger Flxible new look transits of the day. Some might think those were made to be flat-glass versions of GM’s fishbowl windshields, but that’s not the case. Flxible enlarged the 6-piece windshield when they modernized their transit design, but it was actually a direct descendant of the same style windshields used in Fageol-Twin Coach buses made in Kent, Ohio. Flxible purchased the Twin Coach transit line and began producing buses with 6-piece windshields in 1953, 6 years before GM introduced the fishbowl design.
They were made that way for two reasons – 1) the design of the windows helped to reduce the glare from the inside lighting in the coaches, and 2) the smaller windows facing down allowed the operator to get a better feel of where the front fenders were when turning. Plus it looked good with the design of the Flexble New Look buses, which the Flexette was emulating.
I like the second downward looking windshield. It must have helped in close quarter maneuvering and perhaps even a slight aerodynamic help.
Portland Or, had a few of these for special needs transit , just like the bottom photo. I like the ones with the fancier side windows from larger Flxibles
Neat ;
Too bad they (apparently) weren’t made to the same high standards of other Flxible products .
-Nate
I remember these, but had almost forgotten about them. Cute little buses. I remember wanting to turn one into a motorhome back in the 70s.
They would make for a unique alternative to a van based class C motorhome. Easier to park in a secluded little camping spot than a full sized bus. I’m surprised none have turned up as home made campers at Barter Fair.
I enjoyed the article and was glad to see you mention these being built in the old Southern Coach facility. I have never been able to find much internet info on Southern Coach.
It’s a bit of a slight to say Southern built “small” buses. Part of the Birmingham (AL.) Transit Company fleet was a contingent of about 30 Southern Coach 45 passenger diesels (Cummins, I think) that, as I recall, compared well to their GM “Old Look” TDH-4512 stablemates. The Company had a few of Southern’s older, smaller units too. I can barely remember them but I think they would have been about 30-35 passenger. I do remember they were powered by Waukesha gasoline engines that always seemed to be on the verge of flooding out, and produced a stifling exhaust odor.
Thanks for the memories.
Thanks for the additional info Bob – you’re right – not a lot of info out there on SMC – I’ll correct the info above. Jim.
Southern generally served systems in the southern states. In addition to Birmingham, Southern’s buses were sold in San Antonio and Dallas. The company also managed to secure large orders from the military and I distinctly recall seeing well-kept, shiny Southerns employed by the Army. Back in 1967, I was a 20 year old college sophomore, employed by a neighborhood enrichment program that worked with teens. They had a Southern bus and an equally old Twin-Flxible ex-Army bus. We took a group of kids on a field trip from Seattle to Mt. Rainier and return. In my opinion, it didn’t sound too sturdy but it made it there and back. I did not know who the original owner was.
The old Dallas Transit System in Dallas, TX at one time also had a small fleet of the Flexette buses that they used on a circulator route in Downtown, and advertise them as the “Shoppers Special.” The fare in the Downtown area was 10 cents, and the drive would give the customer a transfer slip that was good for use on any Shoppers Special route downtown for a period of 60 minutes. Then the company decided that that was too much trouble and that a flat fare of 10 cents (later raised to 25 cents) would be charged every time you boarded a Shoppers Special bus. The little Flexettes were powered by Chrysler 318 ci V8 engines with the Chrysler Torque-Flite automatic transmission. This combination was a good combination for these buses – they would move on out when needed! The Shoppers Special buses were eventually replaced the with a new downtown circulator known as the “Hop A Bus” – the famous pink “Bunny Buses”.
I was also glad to see the reference to the Southern Coach Company in Evergreen, AL. When I was a kid, our bus system here in Dallas, the old Dallas Transit System had a fleet of the Southern 40′ buses with the underfloor “pancake” diesels and automatic transmissions. (Not sure who built the transmissions or engines) Some of them were air conditioned with Frederich “add-on” A/C units that had a roof mounted compressor unit on the rear of the coach. The compressor was run by a smaller Diesel engine, probably a four cylinder Perkins or something like that. Dallas had the Southerns from 1956 until 1964 when the City of Dallas bought the transit system from a private owner, and replaced all of the old buses with brand new, GMC New Look “Dandy-liner” buses – all with factory a/c!
We had some Southern built 40′ coaches here in Dallas for a number of years. They were powered by a Cummins “pancake” diesel mounted under the floor mid-bus. These old buses lasted for almost 20 years before they were replaced by new GMC 40′ New Look buses. Some of the old Southerns were sold to the City of Wichita, KS for their municipal bus system there.
San Francisco had, still has, a need for a short bus for its 39-Coit line, which winds up a narrow, twisting road to the top of Telegraph Hill. But instead of buying new, they sawed apart buses that they already owned and which were due for retirement, removed a middle section and spliced the two remaining parts together. Here is a chopped-short White gasoline bus, photo from Muni historic portfolio. The White was succeeded by a chopped-short Mack, then by newer buses. The old shortened buses survive in Muni’s historic collection; the White even runs.
Later, Muni did order short production-built buses for lightly-traveled routes, and they fit on the Coit line. A unique part of San Francisco transit passed on to museum status.
Actually, the distinctive Twin-Coach multi-piece windshield design predates the GM Fishbowl:
http://www.fageol.com/Twncoach.gif
Indeed Bob. The Twin Coach design demo’ed in late 1945, 14 years before GM’s new-look hit the streets. The same was true with “slide and glide” doors, a feature that GM didn’t invoke until its’ new look. I was fortunate enough to drive both. At well over 6 ft tall, I relished not having to bend forward to see traffic signals or driving hunched over in that pill-box environment. The GM’s were reliable (in Seattle, we called them “tanks”) but spending 8+ hours in one could be draining on the body. Not so, the Twin. Besides the better visibility, the driver’s seat sat on a platform where you often higher than some patrons. In some neighborhoods, that was a plus!
I find it humorous that these were retired for cutaways partly for “safety reasons”. Whose safety? Those cutaways give me the willies whenever I’m in one and the ride contains a freeway portion. They seem ill-handling, sway a lot, always sound like they are about to fall apart, and I can’t believe that fiberglass passenger compartment offers much of anything in the way of crash protection. Along with not mandating seatbelts on school buses, this country has an amazingly long way to go regarding safety aspects of semi-public transportation.
I’ve ridden in some of those Toyota Coasters and other equivalent vehicles and they feel like a small bus or larger minivan, certainly more substantial than cutaways as well as feeling better than being in something like a GMC 15-passenger van.
“lithe, lissome lethality….”
That is one of the best copy lines I have ever read!
On a more serious note, do you really need front and rear doors for such a small bus?
Today i found a flxible its 17 foot long has gm running gear with a 6 cly , Modle D1012AA 1968 sliding doors both sides and a small backdoor . The frount end is a lot differnt than i have seen hear the s # 8030 and 8 hole wheels
Years ago our church acquired one of the old TriMet Flexettes (I was tired of picking up our lone wheelchair bound riders and placing her in the passenger seat of our van). It had a Chevy 454 converted to run on propane. It may not of looked nice, but it ran well and served us until we replaced it with a better looking,newer cutaway Ford.
In 1982, ’83 and ’84, Portland, OR special transportation services got a small fleet of Flxettes. They had wheelchair lifts (electrically powered) and wheelchair tiedown spots (with jump seats), one regular walk-in door (electrically powered) and were on a GM P30 motorhome chassis that had been converted to propane-only. I worked for a non-profit combined agency that operated in part of the transportation district (Tri-Met). For one of our sites, I scheduled routes/rides and I scheduled maintenance & repairs.
I think the 1982 versions were the first buses that Flxible built on the P30 chassis.
Good things about them: The 454 is more engine than needed. I think those engines would last a long time. The odd-looking windshield worked well for no-glare-from-interior-lights and for seeing the ground close to the front bumper.
Also good: There were changes made after the first year-or-so that corrected some of the things listed under “Bad…”, below.
Bad things about them: The 454 is more engine than needed – and more weight; if the front tires were not kept at their sidewall-max 60psi, we would get a lot of front flats. With zero people on-board, the front axle was about 200 lbs. below placarded capacity. They used tube-type tires, which tend to get more flats, anyway.
The airbags in the front suspension had to be kept at their max-rated, too.
Our shorter drivers had trouble managing the wheelchair door from outside the bus; everyone had trouble on a windy day. The power passenger (non-wheelchair) door relied on roll pins that would shear. The wheelchair lift relied on a roll pin to get power to a gear drive. When that pin would shear, the lift was stuck in place.
One problem that took some troubleshooting was backfiring. Eventually, each bus would start to backfire under load, and it would get worse over time. GM/Flxible/Schetky and I all started by blaming the propane conversion. A mechanic eventually discovered that the spark strength was variable. He couldn’t really run the bus under load with the ‘scope hooked up, though.
My solution: measure the DC resistance of each spark plug wire. I would usually find one with obviously-high resistance (or open, according to my DC meter); replacing it would eliminate the backfire. Apparently, a misfire on propane ignites almost every time. I think that GM was not getting consistently-good quality plug wires, either. [In defense of Larry Humm: This would have been before he was even employed by Delco.] We were low-budget, so I never replaced more than 1 plug wire at a time.
The weight-distribution problem might be blamed on the customizations – the wheelchair lift, huge battery (4D?) and propane tank/regulator were each about as far forward as they could be mounted.
LPG is a great fuel but sensitive to a couple of things. First of all, it requires a very strong spark with a lager gap- 0.060″, meaning HEI was a must. The distributor needs to be recurved to for the different combustion characteristics.
You are correct that the 454 was too much motor. Unless you are driving around in a gravel truck it’s really not necessary. My favourite motor of the era is the Thriftmaster 292. I drove a Chevrolet C-60 in the summer of 1981 and it had to 292. With a full load of gravel it got up to maybe 70km/h!
This is a cool page:
https://www.chevyc60.com/the_engine_page.htm
“Federal safety regulations and the cutaway (which was cheaper) eventually spelled the end of the Flxette.”
2022 update from Las Vegas: Nowadays, most of the shuttle bus-type vehicles – and there are lots of them in town – have moved from cutaway vans to the LWB, high-roof, “Euro-style” vans from M-B, Ford, and RAM. Since they aren’t custom-built, like cutaway shuttles, they’re probably even cheaper. Some of the fancier ones do have custom interiors.
Of course, they don’t seat 20. Usually only 15. That makes them even cheaper to operate, because (I believe) 16+ passengers would require drivers with CDL and they cost more in hourly labor.
Toyota Coaster is much superior design even when it was in its first generation. It and its Japanese competitors are very popular in Asian countries and Caribbean regions. In China, it is often served as party leaders like Mr Xi transportation vehicles, I guess there is no need of armor vehicle like Beast in China
These must have had a decent niche for smaller cities and suburbs. Short buses have become stigmatized for school use though; better to stick to larger vans. Likewise 20-or-so seat conversions of cutaway vans for commuter buses. I saw those Toyota Coasters (or whatever they were) everywhere when I was in the Bahamas several years ago; I think they’d do great here (in the US) as well.
Nice presentation and comments. I visited the Flxible factory in 1980. It was not a massive produciton line as these buses were produced carefully by hand.
Flexible brought out a Flxette demonstrator they were trying to sell to my family’s bus company in Schaumburg, IL in 1978. It was painted all black with peripheral seats. We went for a test ride but the Flxette didn’t match the handling and performance of the 23’ Carpenter forward control fleet we were operating. While I was tempted to buy it, the $29,000 price tag was a bit high compared with the Carpenter buses + the demonstrator had 10,000 miles on it and the peripheral seats were a deal breaker.