Coachbult.com - C.D. Beck & Co.



C.D. Beck & Co. - 1934-1957 - Sidney, Ohio

C. D. Beck & Company – Sidney, Ohio - Another Sidney, Ohio vehicle manufacturer was the C. D. Beck Company. It made large vehicles - primarily busses and motor homes. The company was located on the corner of Russell Road and Main Avenue. The structure now houses LeRoi International.

Beck mounted their intercity bodies on lengthened Ford Model BB chassis. The 1934 Beck Airstream Bus had a wheelbase of 188", 31 inches longer than Ford's longest 157" frame.

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C.D. Beck, a former salesman for the Fremont Metal Body Co., organized a consortium of dealers and operators to buy the Anderson Body Co. in 1932. Anderson had built bodies for the Willys-Knight automobile, which was discontinued during reorganization of Willys, but its first function under its new ownership was the construction of school bus bodies conforming to the unique regulations then in force in New York state. By 1934, a line of low-cost intercity and transit bus bodies with seating capacities from 12 to 33 passengers was being offered for stretched Chevrolet and Ford commercial chassis. A streamline "Airstream" body was offered in that year, and the Beck name was first used in connection with the "Fleetway," an 11-passenger sedan stretchout announced at the end of 1934.

Production of composite (wood-steel) bodies for intercity and transit use continued until new regulations dictated all-metal designs for intercity traffic. The "Steeliner," introduced in 1937, was Beck's most popular product and was produced until 1950. Integral Steeliners and Airstreams were introduced in 1938, and both body-onci1assis and integral buses were made until 1940. A rear-engine bus, the "Super Steeliner," and a low-priced version, the "Scout," appeared late in 1938 in imitation of the Yellow "Super Coach" for Greyhound, but fewer than 100 were sold.

These models were superseded in 1940 by the rear-engine 33-passenger "Mainliner" and more costly "Luxury Liner." Both 185 and 220-inch wheelbase versions of these buses were produced, and they competed with the larger FitzJohn and Aerocoach styles rather than with low-priced Flxibles. The usual engine was an International Red Diamond.

The War Production Board stopped Beck production at the end of 1942 after 420 integral buses had been built, but when the small plant was found unsuitable for war work, Beck was allowed to manufacture a modified version of the Mainliner with transit-type seats called the "Commuter Express." A new plant was opened in 1946, and in 1948 the Mainliner and Steeliner were replaced by new models of generally similar external appearance but with welded tubular body and chassis framing, an innovation pioneered earlier by Aerocoach. Production at this time was at the rate of about 150 buses per year.

In the 1950's there was a parade of new models produced in imitation of GM and Flxible designs, with full silversiding, picture windows, air suspension, and diesel power (Cummins) being added in response to demands. But in common with the other small makers of intercity coaches, Beck found that more and more of its output was destined for export, particularly to Cuba and Mexico. Domestic customers were attracted by the financing terms offered by the larger manufacturers, or else had become part of the expanding Greyhound and Trailways systems and were thus committed to certain bus types.

Beck acquired the Ahrens-Fox fire engine line in 1953 and transferred its production from Cincinnati to Sidney, and it was primarily to acquire the fire engine business that Mack Trucks bought Beck in 1956. A single production run of 25 Mack Cruisers was built at Sidney in 1958, and when this failed to attract much attention the plant was sold and fire engine production moved elsewhere. Total Beck bus production was approximately 3150 units.

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I've learned a little history of Beck and thought I would share it.

Beck began life in 1923 as Anderson Body Company in Sidney, Ohio, Anderson itself a reorganization of an earlier failed company, which manufactured, or attempted to, an automobile known as Bimel. The company Anderson Body bought was called Sidney Manufacturing. Gathering experienced employees from Sidney Mfg. and Mutual Wood Work Company, Anderson Body was an immediate success according to local history.

Anderson made bodies ( metal panels fastened to wood frames with nails or screws) for the Dodge Bros mostly, but also for Hudson and Studebaker, but toward the end of the twenties their fortunes foundered, and they had gone from running day and night and producing ten car bodies a day, to barely staying alive as auto manufacturers began making their own bodes. Worse, one of the principals (Bill Quinn) left to form his own company, (Pioneer Body Company- made roadster bodies for Hudson in 1926) on Park Street in Sidney, and competed with them directly for what little business remained.

By 1932, local investor C.D. Beck had taken over the plant and its assets and formed the Beck Bus Company, producing buses and fire trucks. It was in fact Beck who finished the last Ahrens-Fox Fire Engines. "By 1953, the company was awash in red ink, and C.D. Beck & Company of Sidney, Ohio (manufacturer of intercity buses) was contracted to build the final 25 Ahrens-Fox fire engines then on order. The very last fire engine built by Ahrens-Fox personnel in Ahrens-Fox's own factory, before the Beck sub-contract took effect, was delivered on Christmas Eve, 1953, to Volunteer Fire Company #1 of New Milford, NJ."

Beck eventually moved his company to a sight on Russel Road in Sidney, where CompAir Leroi is now located.

Mack Trucks acquired C.D. Beck Company in 1956.

For more information please read:

Ed Strauss & Karen Strauss - The Bus World Encyclopedia of Buses

G.N. Georgano & G. Marshall Naul - The Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles

Albert Mroz - Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks & Commercial Vehicles

Donald F. Wood - American Buses

Denis Miller - The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trucks and Buses

Susan Meikle Mandell - A Historical Survey of Transit Buses in the United States

David Jacobs - American Buses, Greyhound, Trailways and Urban Transportation

William A. Luke & Linda L. Metler - Highway Buses of the 20th Century: A Photo Gallery

William A. Luke & Brian Grams - Buses of Motorcoach Industries 1932-2000 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Greyhound Buses 1914-2000 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Prevost Buses 1924-2002 Photo Archive