Saturday, October 22, 2011

Blue Bird School Bus - A Brief History

This is a quick post on the history of Blue Bird School Buses followed by a very cool video below. It all started in Fort Valley, Georgia, 25 miles south of Macon. A man by the name of Albert L. Luce, Sr. was a Ford auto dealer who built a school bus for one of his customers which was comprised mostly of wood.

The bus was built on a Model T frame and Luce was not totally happy with the quality of his prototype. He was encouraged to build another one of higher quality. He followed through and completed it in 1927 with a steel body, much more durable than the wooden design.

He sold it to a customer in a nearby town who needed it to transport school children. He built 7 more buses and eventually sold his Ford dealership and founded the Blue Bird Bus Company.
 
Check out this great video on the history of Blue Bird Buses.  as told by Albert L. Luce, Jr.

1 comment :

Jess said...

Thanks for the history lesson. I drive for a school in northeast Ohio and we received two 2012 Blue Bird Visions last spring, one of which is mine. It's neat to see where the company started and how far they have come.