I flew back from vacation in Germany yesterday and noticed when we switched terminals at Washington Dulles that the shuttle bus was built by BUDD in 1962 and rebuilt later by Morrison Knudson! What is up with this?
I think it was common for companies to spread their wings, and try different markets. ALCo made a few trucks back many years ago for an example…
Phil
The Budd brothers were well organized professionals and didn’t put all of their eggs in one basket. Budd designed and manufactured parts for the auto industry and aviation. The BB-1 was a demo airplane, constructed of stainless steel. Budd later built a batch of transport airplanes designated as RB-1s. They were bought and used by the U.S Navy during WWII.
The workmanship quality and pride that went into Budd products is still very evident today as Amtrak is still running 50+ year old Heritage Fleet Budd Lounges and 30 year old Amfleet I and 20+ year old Amfleet II coaches.
Man! what America used to be![;)][tup]
I guess if you can make passenger cars there is really no reason why you can’t make a bus! After all, Grumman (Aircraft) did/does!
Like how Grumman took time out of its busy schedule of making fighters for the Navy and Lunar Modules for NASA to build fire trucks…?
Not to mention about a zillion canoes - to aircraft standards!
ANY company with expensive fabricating machinery, reasonably intelligent designers and a few aggressive sales folk will move into producing similar products with different end users. From a manufacturing point of view, there isn’t that much difference between a cartridge loader and a hand punch press.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
More about the “Mobile Lounges”.
According to the article, they were built by Chrysler in association with Budd.
I’ll give you our Grumman truck. It was a piece of trash from day 1 [:-^]
They also make truck bodies. I had a step-van when I was a working carpenter. GM chassis - like the UPS trucks - aluminum body by Gruman. I could get it up to 90 or so, but not as fast as a F4!![:D]
Edward Budd’s company in Philadelphia was making automotive parts, primarily steel wheels, and even experimented with a rail bus he called the Green Goose, long before he and Ralph Budd of Burlington Railroad fame collaborated on the Burlington’s Pioneer Zephyr stainless steel passenger train.