Posted By Dave Immel 05/30/2013

The wheels on the bus go round and round!

This 1927 Blue Bird is the oldest surviving school bus in America.  Albert Luce, Sr., a Georgia Ford Dealer, built his first bus in 1925 by mounting a purchased wooden body to a Ford truck frame.  However, the wooden body could not withstand the rough Georgia roads.  Luce was convinced he could make a better bus and applied a steel framework under the wood body. During the ‘Great Depression’ auto sales slumped at Luce’s dealerships, however demand for his school buses remained steady.  This success led him to sell his Ford dealerships in 1927 and make school buses full time.  He founded the Blue Bird bus company, originally known as the Blue Bird Body Company.  The Blue Bird name originated from the reception he received when showing a blue and yellow demonstrator bus to a group of school children.

With school coming to a close for another year and our kids taking the final ride home on the bus for the summer, I thought we could take a look back at the vehicle we have entrusted with our children’s safe transport for the past 90 plus years. Ford Motor Company's Model TT truck chassis - made from 1917 until 1927 - could be mounted with a multitude of body styles.  An unknown maker built a passenger school bus body for this 1924 TT.  Other Ford trucks carried ice or coal, delivered everything from flowers to furniture, and even fought fires. This photo is dated September 15, 1925 and shows the bus transporting 25 mostly smiling students and their driver.  Credit photos in this article to The Henry Ford Collection.

Ford Motor Company expanded its commercial lines to combat sagging Depression-era sales as well, offering an array of body types for its truck chassis -- from police patrols and ambulances to garbage trucks and school buses. Here, students of the Fordson School District - in what is now Dearborn, Michigan - board a 1932 Ford school bus. Of course today’s school buses are much safer and more comfortable than those of the past, but not quite as nice as the modern day coach pictured here!