History of the Carpenter buses after the beginning of the 1950s

[1964 Carpenter]

The 1950s really came upon a new era and Carpenter went into full swing bringing in a new design of buses. The Premier had the door that could have confused a school bus buyer between a Carpenter and a Ward by looking at the upper portion of the front door leaf. In 1952, the first prototype Vistaramc came onto the market but the door didn't change. But in 1953, they redesigned the door to where the bottom part of the upper portion of the front leaf would curl under the windshield creating the "S" turn. That design stuck until the time when the Vistaramics were discontinued in 1973. In 1953, they also had the option of a triple pane door halfs (three window panes per door leaf). Two standard window sizes on the door with oval windows at the bottom. That design lasted until late 1967. In 1967, the bottom pane was enlarged, and the door divider was pushed back a few inches creating a "long-door/short-door" look. That was to help improve visibility for the bus driver. In 1969, Carpenter received a facelift to where the color on the dash was changed from dark green to black and the switch panel went from the pull-knobs to rocker switches. And that was when the dome lights were switched to a flat rectangular shape. The overall interior stayed the same until more like 1990.

[DeMac]

I love old buses. Thank you, 1964 Carpenter.


(Same as your namesake)

[cadillackid]

I love the vistaramic carpenters.. couple friends of mine have them.. the flat nose are super cool too..



I rode a couple 1980 carpenter (ford B series) to school brand new.. in 85 our schools got some of the first of the Redesign body high headroom on S-series chassis with 6.9 IDI diesels.. (the districts first ever diesel busses).. I rode a couple of those as Subs.


my current 91 body / 90 chassis is of the same design on a 3800 chassis..


the Wayne-ified carpenters are fascinating to me.



carpenter bought the Wayne plant in richmond indiana in the mid 90s and started on their way to becoming "Crown by Carpenter"..


the driver area of the first couple years of richmond looked just like the Wayne driver area.. the defroster, driver window, parts of the switch panel, door handle, right down to the wayne "indian head" Logo representation in the stepwell heater vent..

[musigenesis]

There's also this part of the Carpenter history, unfortunately: https://icsw.nhtsa.gov/people/injury.../carpenterbus/.

[cadillackid]

my carpenter was repaired... can see where parts of the ceiling was removed and replaced to inspect and repair the roof welds

[Iceni John]

And lest anyone should assume a "Crown by Carpenter" is a Crown, it is not! Crown was killed off in 1991 by its then-owner General Electric "We Bring Good Things To Life". (Yeah, sure.) Anything made after then is not a Crown. Carpenter merely bought the rights to the Crown name and some of the Crown tooling, and even then could not replicate the Crown Super II.

RIP, Crown.

John

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by Iceni John

And lest anyone should assume a "Crown by Carpenter" is a Crown, it is not! Crown was killed off in 1991 by its then-owner General Electric "We Bring Good Things To Life". (Yeah, sure.) Anything made after then is not a Crown. Carpenter merely bought the rights to the Crown name and some of the Crown tooling, and even then could not replicate the Crown Super II.

RIP, Crown.

John

I never saw anything "crown" in a crown by carpenter... the busses really never changed.. the last year or 2 they did finally get away from the wayne dashboard and went for their own switch panel with the familiar carpenter toggles.. a switch panel that had a padded dash piece on top that lasted all of 3 years if lucky....