I ran into this at “The Working Vehicle” Flickr page. It’s a fine looking bus to serve the students at the Fulton Rancho Private School for Girls in Azusa, CA, but no one there has been able to identify it. It’s not likely a Fageol, but there were quite a few other chassis manufacturers then.
Fagoel or Safety Coach??
I’ll take Yellow for 10 cents.
Beautiful capture of a point in time.
Can’t help but wonder how it all unfolded for them?
It looks very similar to this Fageol that ran on a line through the Santa Cruz Mountains in the ‘30’s but differs in a few details. If we don’t get a definitive answer here I can check with some Peterbilt/Fageol history guru’s.
The Fageol clearly differs in a number of ways. The Fageol had a very low chassis, and its hood was just barely higher than the tops of the fenders. The featured bus has a higher hood, and the grille and other details are different. And the Fageol badge on the radiator was always huge; not so this one. That’s why I said it’s not a Fageol.
But there were quite a number of other companies making chassis suitable for a bus body.
“Azusa” – A to Z in the USA.
Tough one – but I’d say a Brill…
White Motors of Cleveland, Ohio?
Could it be some variant of an ACF parlor coach?
The elliptical logo at the top of the radiator grille screams Peterbilt to me.
But I know nothing of coach builds from the era other than that which I’ve learned over the years on this site.
From what I can tell, the fenders and the grill and everything seem to me “Faegol”, but the badge is too small, as Paul noted above. Matt Z said “ACF parlor coach”, and that’s what I think it is, based partly on this article:
“ACF Motors also would build Fageol Safety Coaches in Kent, then Detroit for the year (1926) of the Fageol brothers’ involvement with the company, and from 1927 to perhaps 1935 would build similar buses in Detroit under the ACF name. ”
http://www.fageol.com/F-Pt-2.pdf
Thanks Jerome for the link to the Fageol article. I shouldn’t speculate any more but many of the hard points of the coach body (windshield and A pillar, doors etc) look Fageol to me.
A closer look will show numerous differences from the Fageol, as well as the ACF. I’ve looked at all the guesses here, and none of them match up sufficiently. I’m still stumped.
Pure guess: Possibly a Kleiber? It was a low volume manufacturer in California during this period. It’s hard to tell but the subject truck’s grille badge looks like it might have lettering at an angle.
Great fine bus. However, I am at a loss to decide the manufacruer.
Sure looks like either Faegol inspiration and/or Faegol elements in the build. Given the Southern California customer, I would blindly guess that either Kleiber or Crown Coach, both local to Los Angeles, had something to do with it. Crown was fond of using those triangular windows either side of the main windshield panel.
You might contact the owner of the Flickr account and see if by a miracle he scanned the photograph, or knows who did, thus can get the original photo to scrutinize. Then we could read that badge on the radiator. BTW it’s such a handsome vehicle, I wonder if an example survives yet. Would love to see it.
How about this one, it’s on the ACF-Brill page at Coachbuilt
http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/a/acf_brill/acf_brill.htm
I saw that there too, and it’s the closest match I’ve seen. But there are also differences, such as the headlight mounting. But these details may well have varied over the various production runs.
The Los Angeles area when the air was clean and they had the extensive Pacific Electric light-rail system.
Could be Pierce Arrow but I think it was built around 1918..?
Found this link with more pics:
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1935-7-negatives-orange-grove-fulton-1834022358