Sunday, January 23, 2011

A little history on the bus

The MC-6 also known as the Supercruiser was intended to pioneer the new width of 102 inches in the 1960's. Unfortunately the appropriate legislation proved to be elusive and the MC-6 ended up being ahead of its time. It did not enter regular production until 1969 and only 100 were ever built, all for Greyhound. Because of their width, Greyhound was forced to limit the assignment of MC-6 coaches to special routes where permits or other regulations allowed the coaches to operate. The 102 inch width later became legal years after the MC-6 coaches had left the Greyhound fleet. The MC-6 was built 40 feet long 102" wide and all stainless construction. As far as I can gather, this bus was purchased in the 80's as a entertainer bus already with bedroom galley bathroom and the front with 2 and 1 seating.

 This bus was purchased in the early 80's by William Alfred Cook.. founder of Cook group and Star of Indiana drum and bugle corps. This was one of his first buses, and was used to transport band members to many of the football games. William did a lot of the driving in the 80's. The group back then named the bus 
 "BIG BIRD"  and had a big yellow Big Bird decal on the side window by the door. In the early 90's the bus went through a major rebuild. It never got used much after that, because star was having some financial problems and this was a non proffit organization.

The bus mostly sat with only about 13,000 miles put on since the overhaul. Then John Chandler purchased the bus in 2001 and used the bus to move from Alaska to Idaho. The next year he decided he wanted to full time in the bus. So in 2002 the bus got tore down to be modified for full timing. The bus never got done enough to use untill 2009. Then the bus was drove back to Alaska so John could buy a piece of land he could come to in the summers. I visited with them for a while, then they returned to Idaho. After that he passed and the bus never got winterized, so it froze and busted all the plumbing.

I got the bus in June 2010 and flew down to Idaho, then drove it back to Alaska... This drove like a DREAM and no problems. After I got the bus back to Alaska, I started to tear it back down to repair all the plumbing. I re plumbed the bus with all pex and installed all new plumbing fixtures. Then we re tiled the shower and the floors and installed all new carpet. We have used the bus all over Alaska in the latter part of the summer. It has been VERY RELIABLE and now has 36,000 on the clock. Next project is to polish the stainless like chrome.
Also this bus was first ever BUS OF THE WEEK on  http://www.mcibustalk.com/

3 comments:

  1. Great little bit of history on that! That is something most of us bus owners would like to know about on our buses. Great job! Nice bus!

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  2. Hah it makes sense I would stumble on this amazing bus just 4 weeks after I leave Alaska and loose the opportunity to easily come meet you and see your wonderful bus.

    Looks great!

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  3. Hi Gary... I'm Back in Alaska now, I would love to see this coach sometime, meet you , and talk about RV reno...

    I'm starting on a Travco project this winter f

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