This have been a custom, one-of-a-kind order for Wayne by whichever public school district had ordered it in 1962: a Wayne conventional style School Bus on a Mack Class 8 truck chassis & cowl:

Though this conventional style School Bus is on the GM chassis & cowl-which I have stated in other posts that I am not fond of, I am writing this post about this particular bus because it has the red seats.

The red seats are what this bus was specified with when the school district located somewhere in Tennessee had ordered it.

School Bus – Hawkins County Board Of Education Surplus

Source: Public Surplus: Auction #1492870

A Thomas conventional on the International 3800 chassis & cowl with one of my favorite IH/Navistar engines-the DT360 diesel engine.

ST- 1992 International / Thomas Handicap Bus w/ Chair lift, NO SEATS # # 100 – Ohio Schools Council Surplus

Source: Public Surplus: Auction #1495420

A Rear Engine All American with the John Deere diesel engine converted to run on Natural Gas.

B-419 BLUEBIRD ALL AMERICAN 2001 BUS – Tucson Unified School District Surplus

Source: Public Surplus: Auction #1468809

A Blue Bird conventional style bus on one of my favorite chassis & cowls-the Ford B-Series.

1996 FORD BLUEBIRD (B240) – Livingston Parish Public Schools Surplus

Source: Public Surplus: Auction #1491837

A Thomas Vista on the exclusive International 3600 chassis & cowl with the DT466.

This is how I would spec a Thomas Vista when they were new, no matter if I had ordered them as a smaller size, a wheelchair bus; or as a larger size-the 84 passenger model.

As I would spec a Thomas Vista with the DT466 no matter what, I would spec the smaller size and wheelchair buses with the Allison AT-545 transmission and the larger size with the Allison MT-643 transmission.

1997 INTERNATIONAL THOMAS (B280) – Livingston Parish Public Schools Surplus

Source: Public Surplus: Auction #1492487

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

Modest multi-story homes with a minimum of 1.800 square feet are beginning to have elevators built into them.

Until recently, usually homes with a minimum of 4,000 square feet had an elevator built into them.

Any elevator built into a home is the type that’s rudimentary that only features a gate as the elevator’s “door” (albeit the elevator having a safety feature where it comes to a stop if the gate is pulled open while the elevator is in transit), is very slow, has very basic controls; and is much smaller in size compared to the far more common commercial-style elevator in commercial buildings, apartment buildings; and the like.

Examples of modest multi-story home plans with elevators built into them:

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl77437.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl77263.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl77026.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl77026.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl77460.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl77450.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl68181.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl77091.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl76588.html?from=search

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl76755-1.html?from=search

The size of house that you would normally expect to have an elevator built into it:

http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/epl/hwepl75406.html?from=search

A multi-story home with an elevator built into it would make a multi-story home more desirable in “Early Life And Continuous Livelihood”, and the elevator would be an asset to everyone traversing up and down the multiple floors, especially with my paternal grandmother and her arthritis; but then there’s the additional maintenance that comes with the territory of owning a multi-story home. And especially if we went in the direction of buying property located somewhere in Oakland Township, Michigan and built our own house.

So, for those aforementioned reasons; that still leaves owning a large ranch or a large tri-level home highly attractive.