Coachbult.com - Cincinnati Car Co.



Cincinnati Car Co. - 1920s-1930s - Cincinnati, Ohio

VERSARE (US) 1925-1931

(1) Versare Corp., (Watervliet) Albany, N.Y. 1925-1928

(2) Cincinnati Car Co., Cincinnati, Ohio 1928-1931

The first type of Versare bus, introduced with great fanfare in 1925, was built on the principle of a double-truck streetcar and represented an attempt to produce an extremely large bus capable of doing streetcar duty. There were two bogies, each driven by an electric motor, with the current supplied by a generator driven by a Buda gasoline engine located under a conventional front hood. The power plant was said to be readily removable for repairs, as were the bogies. Body construction was also unique for the period, consisting of fabricated aluminum alloy framing built up in sections, welded together, and covered with an aluminum alloy skin. Four buses and a prototype truck are known to have been built; there could have been more.

In 1927 Versare announced a second type of gas-electric bus with its engine inside the body at the rear, the earliest U.S. example of so-called "streetcar-type" bus construction with the front entrance door ahead of the front axle. There were again two electric motors and two driving axles. This concept proved somewhat more palatable to potential customers, and with interest being shown in the design, the Cincinnati Car Co., an old established streetcar builder, acquired Versare in 1928. A trolley-coach version was marketed as well, initially having the same three-axle layout as the motor bus, but later revised with a single rear axle, and after sale of the company the trolley-coaches were sold under the Cincinnati name. The buses continued to use the name Versare and may have still been built at the original plant in Watervliet, N.Y., near Albany. Approximately 100 buses and 40 trolley-coaches were produced, and buyers included transit companies in New York, Albany, Montreal, Cleveland, Boston and Salt Lake City.

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