Bustypeoversigt:

Thomas Built Buses, High Point (USA)

Nationalitet:

Koncern: Freightliner

Firmaet grundlagt: 1917

Produktion 19??: -

Internetadresse: www.thomasbus.com

Firmaets postadresse:Thomas Built Buses, 1408 Courtesy Road, High Point NC 27260, USA, tlf. +1 336 - 889 48 71

In 1917, Thomas founded Perley A. Thomas Car Works, Inc., his own streetcar building company using the former facilities and many employees of the Southern Car Company. During the next 20 years, Perley A. Thomas streetcars were built and delivered to communities all across the United States, including New Orleans, where they operated on the Desire line made famous by Tennessee Williams' 1947 Broadway play and later film of the same name, A Streetcar Named Desire.

Thomas Built Buses, Inc. was incorporated in 1972 as the successor to Perley A. Thomas Car Works. Previously dependent upon truck chassis made by other companies for its bodies (particularly Ford, Dodge, GMC, International Harvester and even Volvo), in 1978, Thomas introduced its first bus chassis and began producing its popular Saf-T-Liner transit-style bus for school and commercial use. In 1980, the company began to manufacture a smaller conventional school bus on a cutaway van chassis, the Thomas Minotour. It entered the commercial public transit bus market in the 1980s, and developed the Thomas Vista school bus, a modified conventional design providing improved front-end visibility for drivers, and its MVP line, a less expensive version of its transit-style school bus in the 1990s.

By the end of the 20th century, Thomas was one of only three principal builders of large school buses in the United States. It is still based in High Point, and in 1998, was acquired by the Freightliner Group of DaimlerChrysler. Thomas employs over 1,600 people worldwide.

In 2004, Perley A. Thomas, founder of the Thomas streetcar and bus building companies, who died in 1958, was among the first inductees into the Raleigh-based, North Carolina Transportation Hall of Fame. (kilde: Wikipedia)