Blue Bird

**Blue Bird Corporation** is an american bus manufacturer with headquarters located in Fort Valley, Georgia. Best known for its production on school buses, the company has even manufactured a wide variety of other bus types such as transit buses, motorhomes, and specialty vehicles like mobile libraries and mobile police command centers.

## Blue Bird

### headquarters

402 Blue Bird Blvd P.O. Box 937Fort Valley, GA 31030

## Body Design/History

**1927-1937**

In 1925, Albert Luce, Sr., built his first bus by mounting a wood body that's been purchased to a Ford truck frame. The body was unable to resist the roads of Georgia. Luce, convinced he could create a better bus, applied a framework made of steel under the wood body. His success led him to make school buses big time.

The 1927 Blue Bird shown on the right here is the oldest surviving school bus in America. it was the first in a long line of buses made by blue bird, one of the county's major school bus manufacturers. When Luce owned 2 Ford dealerships in 1925 in Georgia, a customer came in and ordered a bus to transport his workers. Mr. Luce bought a wooden body and mounted it on a Ford Model TT truck. However, the body started to rattle apart before the customer could even complete payment for the bus. Luce was convinced he could make a better body for the bus and, by 1927 he built the school bus shown on the right here. a strong steel framework under the wood was his key to success. Within a few years, Luce sold his ford dealerships and began making school buses full time. As the Perry ford dealership was sold in 1932 by Luce, he spent his last capital $12k for the construction of 25 bus bodies, much of which were sold to operators who used them as school transportation for the children.

**1937-1947**

a number of high-profile school bus-train accidents involving multiple fatalities was reported in the mid-1930's which led Luce to convert the blue bird factory into a manufacture of all steel school bus bodies. Luce reasoned that if the students who had rough rides to school have been riding in all-metal bus bodies, then many lives would be spared as a result.

After hearing from a school superintendent whose daughter suffered from a cold and died as a result of riding in a school bus without side curtains, Luce resolved to put in all-weather windows in his all-steel buses as well.

Once several hurdles passed, one of the trickiest being to create a window sash that would not leak, Blue Bird's first all-steel bus body was debuted in 1937 in time for the 1938 school bus session.

The shift to all steel production also proved a boon to business, when several large orders were clinched as the purchaser found out that blue bird's buses were all steel and the competitions were not.

**1947-1956ish**
The picture shown on the right is a 1947 blue bird bus, changes include rounded roof edges. The next year they introduced the All american, main article for the all american that explains nearly the same information on this blue bird page.

**1957-1966ish**

Pictured on the right Is a 1957 model blue bird bus. changes include a flat wind shield.

**1967-present**

Pictured on the right is a 1968 blue bird bus, when the new body was just a year old. For the 1967 body change their decades-old rounded front roof cap was replaced by a new vertical design which would be kept in use for several more decades - as a matter of fact, it's still used on the Vision today!

However, in 1978 the back passenger window was replaced by the one we see today on blue bird buses.