Flxible Production Information - Eagle related
Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 11:47 am
This is the first post of our newly created "Eagle History" forum. The first contributor is Joe Richards (aka Bus & Car"). Joe was a bus trade journalist for many years - he wrote a couple of articles for National Bus Trader and many more for Bus World where he was a Contributing Editor.. He is a bus history buff (putting it mildly) and has an extensive collection of all thing related to buses . I will let Joe explain this first post:
Jim
When you see the extent of his work, I think you will be like me an anxiously await Joe's Eagle production record document.Given this is a forum about Eagle buses, why are we starting off with a discussion about Flxible?
Eagle History actually starts with the 1955 Flxible Vista-Liner 100. The first Eagle got it's rounded corners, wraparound windshield and Torsalastic suspension from the VL100 as it was commonly referred to.
The VL100's styling was an interesting blend of Art Deco and The Future. The gentle roundness of many of its forms showed the Art Deco influence. The Future was represented by the hidden headlights, the wraparound windshield and the integration of the door and driver's windows into the overall design as had never been done before. It also looked like a huge sports car in some ways,
something that Flxible called attention to in it's sales materials.
Sadly, the VL-100 had a severe weakness. With Only 170 HP it was quite underpowered. Having a five speed transmission helped but it didn't solve the problem of having 41 less horsepower than a GMC PD 4104. Worse yet, the main engine also powered the air conditioning, which further reduced performance. If that weren't enough, having to drive it at full throttle all the time did nothing to improve it's fuel economy.
Continental was able to repower their fleet of 113 VL-100's with Detroit Diesel 6-71 engines and that almost solved the problem but it was an an extra expense brought about by the Cummins JT-600 engine that wasn't up to the job of adequately powering the coach even with a turbocharger.
Other Trailways carriers ordered another 20 VL-100's and these also got repowered with 6-71's. Continental was otherwise happy enough with its repowered VL-100's to order 66 Flxible Hi-Level coaches in 1960.
VL-100 production was 109 in 1955, 61 in 1956, 29 in 1957 and only 9 in 1958. Trailways carriers took 133 of the the 160 built in the first two years and ended up with 133 out ot the total of 208 built during its four year production run.
It was a similar situation with the Hi-Level. Trailways carriers took 75 of the 93 built in 1960. That was the last order that Trailways placed with Flxible as Eagle production had ramped up to the point that Continental bought exclusively Eagles from then on. That's another story and we'll be dealing with it starting in 2015.
As a side note, many of Flxible's customers turned to Eagle after Flxible closed down or they needed larger buses.
Jim