As I have already stated in another post, I am not fond of the Freightliner FS-65 chassis & cowl, but here is one of the last Thomas conventionals produced on the Freightliner chassis & cowl before the Safe-T-Liner C2 replaced their tried and true conventional body.

The Safe-T-Liner C2 is a symbol of Thomas’s integration of Daimler/Freightliner, and both the chassis & cowl and the body are designed to be as one produced by the same party, similar to a passenger car.

Their traditional tried and true conventional body harkened back to when they were independently owned and controlled by the family and descendants of Pearley Thomas (not by Daimler/Freightliner), and GM & Ford, alongside International each produced chassis & cowls for Thomas, alongside what was their 5 other competitors (Blue Bird, Carpenter, Ward/AmTran, Wayne; and Superior) to utilize by building conventional style School Bus bodies onto them.

Then Superior went out of business in 1980, Wayne went out of business in 1995, Carpenter went out of business in 2001, Ford decided to exit the Medium & Heavy-Duty truck business by selling it to Daimler/Freightliner to become Sterling and included their chassis & cowl business along with the sale; the GM chassis & cowl’s last decade in production was limited exclusively per an agreement with Blue Bird, International Harvester/Navistar had purchased Ward/Amtran as their own in-house School Bus body manufacturer in 1991, Daimler/Freightliner had purchased Thomas as their own in-house School Bus body manufacturer in 1998; and Blue Bird has gone through a series of ownership changes since the family and descendants of Albert Luce Sr. had sold Blue Bird in 1992.

Ideally, if I were to have my way, and professionally and not personally speaking; General Motors and Isuzu would each purchase a 50% stake in Blue Bird in a move similar to IH/Navistar having purchased Ward/AmTran and Daimler/Freightliner having purchased Thomas, and from this point on, Blue Bird products would be available exclusively on GM and Isuzu chassis. The conventional would be available strictly on a GMT560 Medium-Duty truck chassis & cowl and only with the Isuzu 6HK1 Diesel engine, the TC/1000 would be available strictly on a chassis based on the Isuzu Elf/N-Series EcoMax with the Isuzu 4JJ1 Diesel engine; the TC/2000 would be available strictly on a chassis based on the Isuzu Elf/NQR with the Isuzu 4HK1 Diesel Engine, and both the Front & Rear engine versions of the All American would be available strictly on chassis based on the Isuzu Forward/F-Series and available with the Isuzu 6HK1 diesel engine.

Spcial Needs Bus, Unit #50 – Saginaw Intermediate School District Surplus

Source: Public Surplus: Auction #1345102