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Mid Bus Corporation
Fate Acquired by Collins Industries (1998)
Predecessor Superior Coach Company
Founded 1981
Defunct 1998
Headquarters Lima, Ohio (1981-1995)
Bluffton, Ohio (1995-2007)
Area served North America
Products school buses
Parent Collins Industries
Website http://www.midbus.com


Mid Bus was a corporation which specialized in manufacturing customized school buses. Formed in 1981 by former employees of Superior Coach Company in Lima, Ohio, it grew from a dozen employees working in a small facility in Lima to become one of the country's largest manufacturers of smaller school buses, moving to a much larger facility a few miles north of Lima in 1995.

The company was acquired by Collins Bus Corporation in 1998. On September 19, 2007, Collins announced plans to close the Mid Bus plant in Ohio and consolidate all manufacturing at the Collins facility in Kansas. [1]

History[]

In 1980, in the US, there were six major school bus body companies building large school buses, mostly making bodies for chassis from four truck manufacturers, joined by two coach-type school bus builders on the West Coast. Most also made some smaller buses of various types. With the baby boom years which swelled the ranks of school children in the past, the manufacturing industry faced serious over-capacity as companies vied and competed for lower volumes of purchases.

In 1981, when Sheller-Globe Corporation, a diversified industrial conglomerate closed down its large Superior Coach Company bus factory in Lima, Ohio, three former managers created Mid Bus, manufacturing Superior's smallest Type A bus under the new "Superior by Mid Bus" brand name.

Initially, they had a dozen other former employees of the large factory, and worked in a small shop. As other small bus products were added, Superior by Mid Bus was shortened to Mid Bus. In the late 1980s, the company acquired the Minuteman product line from AmTran (formerly Ward Body Company) and in the early 1990s, the tooling and product rights to Busette from Wayne Corporation.

After a succession of larger facilities in Lima, around 1995, the company moved to a much larger facility in Bluffton, Ohio. Mid Bus became a subsidiary of Collins Industries, a publicly-traded stock company, in 1998. On September 19, 2007, Collins announced plans to close the Mid Bus plant in Ohio and consolidate all manufacturing at the Collins facility in Kansas. [1]

Products[]

  • Guide SW - Ford E350 or GMC 3500/Chevy 2500 chassis
  • Guide DW - Ford E350 or GMC 3500/Chevy 2500 chassis
  • Guide XL - GMC 4500/5500 chassis
  • Multi Function SAB - Ford E350 or GMC 3500/Chevy 2500 chassis

External links[]

References[]

Smallwikipedialogo This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Mid Bus. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Tractor & Construction Plant Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons by Attribution License and/or GNU Free Documentation License. Please check page history for when the original article was copied to Wikia


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