Coachbult.com - Accubilt



Accubilt Inc. - 1989-present - Lima, Ohio

In 1950, Cincinnati, Ohio's Ed Robben bought Armbruster, a Fort Smith, Arkansas-based airport limousine maker. Stageway Coaches, a large Cincinnati-based distributor of Armbruster's products was purchased by Robben from Queen City Chevrolet in 1962. Stageway relocated to Fort Smith and was now given exclusive rights to distribute Armbruster's coaches. Upon Dobben's death in 1966, Milt Earnhart, his son-in-law, assumed ownership, and combined the two operations renaming the firm Armbruster-Stageway Inc.

In 1973, Tom Earnhart - Milt's son and an a marketing genius - joined the firm after graduation from college and eventually assumed control of the firm. Earnhart sold Armbruster-Stageway to Carmatex Inc. in January 1981 and a few months later purchased the assets and trade name of the now-defunct Superior Coach Co. from its parent company, Sheller-Globe.

Earnhart then purchased the Sayers & Scovill business and trade name from Hess & Eisenhardt towards the end of the year and transferred all S&S production to Superior's Lima, Ohio facility which was run by Darrel Metzger, Superior's long-time funeral car and ambulance sales manager, and later on - its president.

To further complicated matters, Earnhart merged with Northeast Ohio Axle in 1985 and the new firm NEOAX Inc, purchased Carmatex Inc., the same firm which had purchased Armbruster-Stageway from Earnhart just 4 years earlier. NEOAX Inc. (aka Earnhart) now owned Superior, Sayers & Scovill, Armbruster-Stageway (Carmatex), and Northeast Ohio Axle.

NEOAX sold off Armbruster-Stageway to Executive Coach Builders in 1989 but kept S&S and Superior, first renaming it S&S/Superior of Ohio, Inc., then NEOAX Inc. Superior Coaches Div. and finally Accubuilt Inc. in 1989.

During 1995, Accubuilt Inc. moved into a new purpose-built, 175,000-square-foot facility in Lima, Ohio. Accubuilt purchased the Eureka and Miller-Meteor trade names from CCE Inc. in 1999 and moved all Eureka and Miller Meteor manufacturing to the Lima plant.

In August 2001, Accubuilt purchased the assets of Vartanian Industries, a small shuttle and wheelchair van converter and moved their operations to the Lima, plant.

Today, 220 skilled Accubuilt employees manufacture $45.90 Million Dollars worth of quality vans and professional vehicles for five distinct brand names: Vartanian, Eureka Coach, Miller-Meteor, S&S (Sayers & Scovill) and Superior.

For more information please read:

The Professional Car (Quarterly Journal of the Professional car Society)

Gregg D. Merksamer - Professional Cars: Ambulances, Funeral Cars and Flower Cars

Thomas A. McPherson - American Funeral Cars & Ambulances Since 1900

Carriage Museum of America - Horse-Drawn Funeral Vehicles: 19th Century Funerals

Carriage Museum of America - Horse Drawn - Military, Civilian, Veterinary - Ambulances

Gunter-Michael Koch - Bestattungswagen im Wandel der Zeit

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Ambulances 1900-1979: Photo Archive

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Funeral Vehicles 1900-1980 Photo Archive

Walter M. P. McCall - The American Ambulance 1900-2002

Walter M.P. McCall - American Funeral Vehicles 1883-2003

Michael L. Bromley & Tom Mazza - Stretching It: The Story of the Limousine