Parlor Cars for Studebaker It was in 1925 that the Studebaker Corp. started to pro- mote its Big Six 184-inch wheelbase chassis for bus use. One of the bodies that was offered was a 15-passenger sedan-style parlor car built by FitzJohn--an innovation that marked the end of the company's exclusive association with Reo. Other bodies were soon being built for Studebaker chassis too. The South Bend plant of Studebaker was only 10 miles farther from Muskegon than Reo's Lansing facility, so that the costs of comparable buses would have been about the same.
FitzJohn enjoyed a steady increase in business during the mid-1920's, the years when new bus routes were being started by the hundreds. Shipments in 1925 were exactly twice what they had been in the previous year (though the company never quoted figures), and just over half of them were transit buses. Records of sales and deliveries have been preserved beginning with the summer of 1927, so that it is known that in the busy years of 1928 and 1929 (before the depression), FitzJohn delivered 271 and 284 bus bodies, respectively.
|
The well-liked FitzJohn Utility Coach, model D, on a Studebaker chassis for Tri-state Transit Co. of Louisiana, which eventually became part of today's continental Southern Lines. The official designation for the two buses in this 1928 order was SD-12; the "S" indicated the Studebaker chassis, in this case a model 75 Junior. |
