Flxible Clipper buses

This cult type was built by Ansett under licence through the 1950s. Many have survived into preservation. My only journey in one was with Tasmanian Redline: Zeehan or Queenstown - Strahan in Jan.72, and I didn't take a photo.
Here is a lightly-modified version of notes which I wrote for an aviation group.
In July 1919 Flexible Sidecar Co. became Flxible Co.; the name was copyrighted and that spelling has been exclusive to Flxible ever since. The factory was in Loudonville, Ohio. In 1939, Flxible introduced its famous 29 passenger Clipper, powered by a modified straight-eight Buick engine. Nearly 5000 of these were in operation at one time, serving over 1000 bus owners [USA, possibly Canada]. There are lots of photos on a Google search, and some video clips.
www.1948clipper.20m.com
www.flxibleowners.org
www.flxibleowners.org/history.htm
What isn't clear is the starting date for the Ansair division, and if it was starting from cold, or if it was an older firm taken over (as with Pioneer). Conceivably the two were linked in time (synergy). One source quoted that the main aim was to keep metalworking skills (notably aluminium ones) alive in the technical department, but another source noted an armslength relationship.
CAC had to move into bus building in the 1940s to keep the skills alive and the workers employed: 'If you can't build the thing you love, you can love the thing you build'. The name Comair was adopted around 1960.
Those Flxible Clipper buses in the Essendon Airport photos weren't just operated by Ansett Pioneer, they were built by Ansair under licence. I can't get the dates or quantities for the Australian batch: around 1954. They featured in a lot of advertising of the era, and are as iconic in the bus hobby as DC3s are in aviation. Many are preserved and go to rallies.
Ansair was the bus making division of Ansett Transport Industries Ltd (ATI), of which Ansett Airlines was also a division.
Sir Reginald Ansett started out with a taxi and then bus service between Melbourne and Hamilton (western Victoria) which became Ansett Roadways and led him to
purchase Pioneer buslines. Ansair also built aircraft seats and other hardware, and may have in the early days used airframe people to work on bus manufacture...but in the later years they were very separate organisations with the same parent...even though the Ansett Airlines heavy maintenance operations at Melbourne Airport was in close proximity to Ansair's main manufacturing plant in Tullamarine. Pioneer was purchased by Greyhound Australia and some of its buses operate in Greyhound-Pioneer livery. Ansair was sold to Austral Pacific around 1995; that was sold to Clifford Corporation, and collapsed in 1998 [ie, before the collapse of the airline].
In Canberra we still have a few Ansair buses built on Volvo chassis [I also found one on a Renault chassis]. Was Ansair started from scratch, or was it an existing business taken over?
Did that coincide with the takeover of Pioneer?
Years of production, and quantities, of Flxible Clippers?
Pioneer ran lots of USA-derivative designs, presumably all built by Ansair: Scenicruisers (1960s?), MC6s, MC8s. Ansair also built lots of urban buses, on various chassis. I guess that all of the Mildura ones, run by Ansett, had Ansair bodies.
Ansair also built aerobridges for main airports.

See:
www.flxible.net/ansairflxible.html

www.hcvc.com.au/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1240693139/30 (A Dave Menzies view at Essendon Airport, early 1970s)

www.hcvc.com.au/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1298413943 (a view from me at the 2003 HCVC Sandown rally).

I have several more photos to add to this thread.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Smithy
Gudday M8

Gr8 info




if u're into buses
LOL

if U got sum time to kill
lotsa links here
www.coachbuilt.com/
Cya
[ch9787]

These two have been placed with Yahoo groups busphotosaustralia and transportdownunder already.

They were taken at an HCVC rally at International Harvester (Dandenong, Vic.).

Does that logo on the back of the Pioneer one denote an engine manufacturer?

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Smithy, it's got a Perkins in it, there is one up here that has a 6/354 in it, and the bloke was thinking of putting a V8 540 in it, the mesh accross the back is for the radiator, the one beside may still have the V8 Deutz which are air cooled. Ansair were also the importers of Deutz I think. They made a larger bus based a bit on the flxible design which was a bit heavy, there used to be one in Bundaberg.

The clippers that were extended when the overall length changed are identified by the extra window in the middle of the bus, not that either of these buses has that.

I remember seeing one that appeared to be in regular service. I was in Narrabri for a couple of months 76/77, wheat harvest. This Flxible or what I later beleived to be a Flxible came in to town from the south on a number of occasions, which lead me to think it was in regular service, I did'nt really know what it was then, but I remember the round rear.

Re- the drivers Flxible, in the photo with the 2 Flxibles.

Here's a bit of info direct from "Drivers" own site, check out fleet number 18.

www.driverbuslines.com.au/fleetchronicle.html
www.driverbuslines.com.au/currentfleetlist.html



regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

I have no time today to prepare my next lot of photos, but that Driver link has a whole album of the type: some from its Tasmanian days, before Driver bought it.
In keeping with the heritage reasons for owning it, many of the photos have come from rallies or historic settings:
* Braidwood (NSW)
www.driverbuslines.com.au/enlargedbuspages/hf5_9.html
* Hamilton (Vic.) with an ANA DC3 (or DC2; I'll have to check): www.driverbuslines.com.au/enlargedbuspages/hf5_7.html
Hamilton is the home of an Ansett museum.

In a different hobby, I was impressed by the William Inge play 'Bus stop', which has also appeared by a film. It is set in the early 1950s in Kansas (USA) during a blizzard. It could just as easily have been western NSW or western Queensland, with floods instead of snow triggering the evening. I saw a production in Anchorage (Alaska, USA), and it had the 1950s look to perfection. The driver could just have stepped from a Flxible Clipper.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Stop_(play)
and lots more by Googling.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Here is another from the collection of Dave Menzies. He spent the first half of the 1970s working in Australia, then returned to UK. In an era where everyone has a scanner, he is digitising his extensive collection of photos of trams, buses, ferries and aeroplanes, and passing them to suitable groups. One theme goes to an easy-to-access archive; I am on a direct list for the other three.

I am not confident of the location of this photo.m My first thought was Flinders St into Wellington Pde (Melbourne), but that stretch has large plane trees.

The Comair behind the Flxible Clipper also counts as ubiquitous, and worthy of its own thread, but is hardly a cult type.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Hi Roderick,i followed up on these a few years ago with an eye to buying one but scarcity,condition,location ,transport etc made it all a bit too hard/expensive for me. I think Aussie production was 131 and went thru to 1969,i remember seeing 1 of only 2 stretched clippers (built/modified for East/West Nullabor run) in Soltoggio Bros old wrecking yard in Perth just as thy were cleaning out to shift to new premises,it went to scrap but i remember that they said a guy with an interest in flx,s could help themselves to whatever they might still salvage from a pretty bare carcass,i hope he got some usefull bits

The Flxible Clipper Club of Australia has a web site but is currently off air.

AF131, the last Australian Clipper was built in 1960 with an F6L714 Deutz for Green Coaches of Hobart.