Carpenter Body Company

Foundation Carpenter traces its roots to 1918, in Mitchell, Indiana. Local blacksmith Ralph H. Carpenter established his own blacksmith works; at the time, part of the business involved building and repairing horse-drawn wagons. At the time, in many rural areas, these were still adapted to carry people simply with the addition of wooden benches. Inspired by the merger of two local school systems in the area near Mitchell, in 1922, Carpenter shifted from repair to construction of new bodies, constructing his first wooden-bodied "kid hack". In 1941, the company became one of the first publicly owned bus manufacturers. During the World War II moratorium on private-sector vehicle manufacturing, Carpenter became a bus supplier for the US Army and US Navy, becoming a source of buses for military training facilities across the United States. During the first half of the 1980s, the company began to modernize its school bus range. For 1983, the Cavalier replaced the front-engine Corsair, adopting the International 1853FC chassis (making a diesel engine standard). Sharing parts of its design with the CBW, the Cavalier upgraded driver visibility and ergonomics over its predecessor; as it was sold in limited numbers, the rear-engine Corsair remained in production. During 1984, the Carpenter conventional-body school bus (renamed the Classic) underwent its most extensive updates in nearly 20 years, distinguished by nearly-flat bodywork above the windshield and rear windows. In 1985, Carpenter introduced its smallest school bus, with the Carpenter Clipper using a cutaway van chassis (primarily the dual rear-wheel Chevrolet/GMC G30). Though less volatile than the 1978 strike, operations for Carpenter faced further instability as the 1980s progressed. After selling fewer than 150 units, Carpenter closed down its CBW transit bus line during 1984. To make the design possible, the body of the Crown RE adopted an upward-angled floor (built over the engine compartment). Carpenter also marketed commercial-use variants of its school buses (also under the Crown by Carpenter name). In 1998, Carpenter developed a Crown delivery truck loosely derived from its Cadet Type B school bus line. In exchange for cash payment of the development of the Crown FE/RE, Carpenter offered chassis manufacturer Spartan Motors a one-third stake of the company in 1996. In the summer of 1998, Carpenter Industries was forced to cease operations for three months; in response, Spartan Motors doubled its stake in the company, becoming the majority shareholder in October 1998. To return Carpenter to profitability, Spartan installed several new management members to the company. In March 2001, the final vehicle was produced, nearly 80 years after Ralph Carpenter produced his first wood-bodied school wagon. Carpenter Chancellor RE (2001) During early 2000, Carpenter previewed a rear-engine version of the Chancellor as its third, flagship model line, intended for 2001 production. In contrast to its predecessors, the Chancellor RE differed substantially from its front-engine counterpart beyond its engine layout. While the rear emergency door option of its Crown RE predecessor was removed, the Chancellor brought new innovations with its design. Its Spartan chassis used double frame rails; through the use of smaller-diameter wheels (19" vs. the standard 22.5"), the interior was designed with a full-length flat floor. Other standard features included independent front suspension with air ride for both axles. Coinciding with the closure of the company, only a single prototype was completed along with a second rolling chassis (intended for display). == Closure ==

For the final two decades of its existence, Carpenter had struggled through a variety of factors: declining market share, company finances, and damages to its reputation. The company also struggled to compete in a market segment facing larger-scale issues of stagnant demand and production overcapacity. Carpenter began losing money on a large scale during the end of the 1970s, ultimately leading to its 1989 bankruptcy and 1990 acquisition. Following its initial reorganization, the company maintained a degree of liquidity, but without a long-term future. In contrast with its remaining competitors (AmTran and Thomas, with Blue Bird doing so through a different venture), Carpenter did not align itself with a major truck manufacturer during the 1990s to secure conventional truck chassis. Though the company had been affiliated with Spartan Motors since 1992 (introducing Spartan to school bus chassis production), Carpenter sourced Spartan chassis for transit-style school buses (a distinct minority of school bus production). In contrast to Ford (later Freightliner), General Motors, and International, Spartan was a specialty manufacturer that produced chassis for recreational vehicles and fire and rescue apparatus accustomed to premium markets with lower quantities and higher margins; school buses were sold under distinct pressures for low pricing (regardless of sales volume). The Spartan-chassis Carpenter Chancellor was well received by the industry for both its design innovations and its potential for premium quality. The design approach proved a fatal downside to its launch, as incorporating both aspects also meant placing the company at a competitive disadvantage in pricing (a factor that largely ended school bus production of Crown Coach and Gillig). At the beginning of October 2000, Spartan approved the liquidation of Carpenter, leading to the final closure of the company in early 2001 after completing all customer orders. While Spartan acknowledged that its investment in Carpenter would have become a long-term success, it had yet to make a profit in the venture and continued school bus production was placing the entirety of Spartan Motors under financial risk; in total, the closure of Carpenter cost Spartan over $7 million. In the rollover of the bus, the internal roof structure failed, causing much of the roof to collapse down to the level of the seats. Following the rollover accident, inspections of the accident vehicle revealed a large number of cracked and broken welds in the roof structure. Subsequent inspection of Carpenter buses by operators in various parts of the United States revealed similar failed welds in their roof structure; the problem was not unique to the crash vehicle in Florida. The buses affected were units assembled by Carpenter in its Mitchell, Indiana facility prior to its 1995 closure; though the roof design was shared by approximately 15,000 vehicles, a large number were presumed to have been retired from service at the time of the accident. The Crown by Carpenter and Carpenter buses built in Richmond, Indiana from 1996 to 2001 used a different design for their roof structure (extending the roof bows to floor level) and were not found to have any related issues with cracked or broken roof welds. The 2001 closure of Carpenter posed several problems to resolving the safety issue. In a normal case, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) would have used the preliminary findings as part of a full-scale investigation. If the findings found any kind of manufacturers defect, a safety recall of the vehicles involved would be ordered by NHTSA. As Carpenter was no longer in operation (and with no successor company in existence), that procedure was impossible, as there was no one for NHTSA to hold accountable for the design problem. While unable to offer a recall, NHTSA responded to its roof structure concern by releasing several advisories regarding Carpenter buses produced in Mitchell, Indiana. In notifying Carpenter bus operators its recommendation to inspect their own buses for cracked and broken welds in the roof structure, NHTSA clarified that not all details behind the design and construction of the roof layout could ever be made available; it also noted that it could not advise repair unilaterally. For Carpenter buses that were found to have failed roof welds, NHTSA recommended the replacement of the vehicle; if retirement from service was not practical, NHTSA advised professional repair of the failed welds and restriction of the vehicle to low-speed use (minimizing its potential for rollover); a school bus industry organization went further, advising operators to remove affected Carpenter buses from front-line service entirely (restricted to reserve use). To avoid resale of the affected vehicles to the public, NHTSA advised that the title of Carpenter buses removed from service to be branded as "scrap". ==Products==

Carpenter produced a product lineup of both small and full-size buses. Like other school bus manufacturers, the company also produced commercial, shuttle, and transit bus derivatives of their school bus designs. The Carpenter Cadet, introduced in 1969, was one of the first Type B school buses; during the Crown by Carpenter era, a modified version of the Cadet was marketed as a delivery van. With the exception of "Classic", its Type C conventional and "Coach", its Type D rear-engine transit style (influenced by Crown Coach), most Carpenter school buses derived their model names from themes in education (Classmate, Cadet, Counselor, Chancellor) while many transit-style Carpenters derived their model names from common team names (Corsair, Cavalier). ==Survivors==

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC has a thirty-six passenger school bus built by Carpenter Body Works in 1936 on a chassis made by Dodge in 1939. The bus carried students to the grade school in Martinsburg, Indiana from 1940 to 1946, and was owned and driven by Russell Bishop during that period. It was later used as a traveling grocery store until 1962. The bus has a streamlined steel body painted double-deep or "Omaha" orange with black trim. It was restored by Carpenter in the early 1980s under the supervision of Ollie Eager, who was Carpenter's plant manager in 1936, and John Foddrill, who worked in the Carpenter plant in 1936. The bus has replacement seats that do not match the originals exactly. The originals were black upholstery. ==References==