Where the Eagle Came From – Part 3

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

Learn about the Golden Eagle and the Hostess who brought you cold beverages and light snacks.

Learn about the 37' M12 Eagle coach. It came without a Lavatory. Therefore, it did not sell very well.

Learn about the 40' M15 bi-level Eagle coach. It had a Lavatory on the lower level. These coaches had a rear side door, but California forced them to secure it closed for safety reasons.

The lightning bolt paint scheme was replaced with the hockey stick.

In 1974, Eagles International was established in Brownsville, Texas, and they started building buses there.

Belgium stopped building Eagles shortly after that.

They used to say that if you didn't have a good shop, you couldn't run an Eagle. Is this true?

In 1976, the last Silver Eagle was made as was the Golden Eagle.

Many Eagles were shipped from Miami to Chile.

The shop in Dallas was starting to rebuild the 01 Eagles to make them into "Brucks", or Combo buses that transported freight and passengers. They rebuilt them from the ground up at 60% of the cost of building a new bus. They became Package Express buses that you may have seen on the road years ago.

The Eagle 05 buses started being rebuilt from the ground up in Brownville, based on the success of rebuilding the 01 Eagles. However, they rebuilt them as passenger buses, not Brucks.

It was at this time that the MCI MC-8 buses were selling like hotcakes, and MCI then began building the MC-9 buses. Based on their sales performance, Eagle began developing the Eagle 10 model to compete with MCI.  However, not much was changed from the 05 model. Most of the body parts were the same. But it helped sales, as many people thought it was a whole new bus.

Many of the Model 10 buses were shipped to Australia.

Beginning with the Model 05 Eagle, entertainer buses began catching on and flourished with the Model 10. Passengers loved the ride of the Eagle, as they could sleep more soundly in an Eagle bus than in the competitor's buses due to the Torsilastic suspension.

Watch the full video here...

https://youtu.be/jJKOOau-TTQ

Subscribe to our Channel to see weekly videos about bus history.