Advertisement for 1974 Wayne Car-O-Van ambulance based upon a cutaway van chassis.

Cutaway van chassis are used by second stage manufacturers for a wide range of completed motor vehicles, primarily small trucks, school buses, ambulances, and recreational vehicles. Download high resolution version (838x609, 55 KB)1974 Wayne Car-o-van Ambulance File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Download high resolution version (838x609, 55 KB)1974 Wayne Car-o-van Ambulance File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... advertisement for 1973 Wayne Lifeguard School Bus on Ford chassis Wayne Corporation was a large manufacturer of buses branded with the tradename Wayne. ... Ambulance An ambulance is a vehicle designated for the transport of sick or injured people. ... The driver of this DAF tractor with an auto-transport semi-trailer prepares to offload Skoda Octavia cars in Cardiff, Wales For further uses of the word truck, see Truck (disambiguation). ... Jump to: navigation, search A new 1973 Wayne Lifeguard school bus won in national contest for safety ideas is presented to winning driver from Goochland County Public Schools by Wayne dealer Jeff Davis at Virginia State Capitol A school bus is a bus used to transport children and adolescents to... Ambulance An ambulance is a vehicle designated for the transport of sick or injured people. ... Jump to: navigation, search Recreational Vehicle (or RV) is a term used to describe a large enclosed piece of equipment with wheels designed to be moved from place to place for people to temporarily live in and be protected from the elements while away from their permanent home. ...

History

Following the initial popularity of Volkswagen's imported minibuses, vans made by the domestic manufacturers were developed and became popular in the United States in the 1960s. By the early 1970s', Chrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors were all manufacturing many models of passenger vans. The Dodge passengers vans of Chrysler had a maximum seating capacity of 14 persons plus the driver, and came to be commonly known as 15 passenger vans, joined by similar sized models by the other manufacturers years later. Volkswagen [literally: peoples car] (VW) is an automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Germany. ... A van is a vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people. ... The Chrysler Corporation is a United States-based automobile manufacturer, which was purchased in 1998 by Daimler-Benz to become DaimlerChrysler. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Ford Motor Company (often referred to simply as Ford; sometimes nicknamed FoMoCo, NYSE: F is an automobile maker founded by Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, and incorporated on June 16, 1903. ... Jump to: navigation, search General Motors Corporation NYSE: GM, also known as GM, is a United States-based automobile maker with worldwide operations and brands including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Vauxhall. ... Dodge is a brand name of automobiles and light- to heavy-duty trucks, marketed by the Chrysler Corporation from 1928 to the present. ...

Conversions for personal motor homes became very popular, drawing the interest of recreational vehicle manufacturers. Based upon that, cutaway van chassis were developed in the early 1970s to accommodate demand for conversions which were heavier and wider than the standard production vans completed by the major auto and truck manufacturers (i.e. Chevrolet-GM, Dodge, and Ford). As they began working on bigger models of their popular light-duty van products, they developed cutaway van chassis chassis solely for use by second stage manufacturers. Jump to: navigation, search Chevrolet Logo Chevrolet, or Chevy, is a brand of automobile, now part of the General Motors group. ... Jump to: navigation, search General Motors Corporation NYSE: GM, also known as GM, is a United States-based automobile maker with worldwide operations and brands including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Vauxhall. ... Dodge is a brand name of automobiles and light- to heavy-duty trucks, marketed by the Chrysler Corporation from 1928 to the present. ... Ford may mean a number of things: A ford is a river crossing. ...

Second stage manufacturers build such products as bus and truck bodies, motor homes, and other specialized vehicles. Neither their product, nor the first stage portion, called an incomplete motor vehicle, are fully-compliant with requirements for a complete motor vehicle. Neither portion can be licensed or operated lawfully without the other.

Featuring a van front end and cab design, the body ended immediately behind the driver and front passenger seats, and usually was covered by temporary plywood or heavy cardboard material for shipment to the various second stage manufacturers. It was soon known by the name "cutaway van chassis" in recognition of this feature.

Many cutaway chassis are equipped with dual rear wheels and can handle greater weight loads than the basic vans upon which they were based.

Busette: first of the cutaway school buses

Busette, developed by Wayne Corporation in 1972, was the first successful small school bus to be based on a cutaway van chassis with dual rear wheels. With a low center of gravity and the dual rear wheels, Busette provided an exceptional combination of increased seating capacity and handling stability over conventional vans and van conversions. Jump to: navigation, search Advertisement for 1975 Wayne Busette. ... advertisement for 1973 Wayne Lifeguard School Bus on Ford chassis Wayne Corporation was a large manufacturer of buses branded with the tradename Wayne. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ... In physics, the center of gravity (CoG) of an object is the average location of its weight. ...

By the early 1980s, all five of the major school bus body companies in the United States had developed competing products built on the cutaway van chassis. These manufacturers were joined by several others which specialized in small school buses. In the early 1990s, Mid Bus, an Ohio manufacturer specializing in small school buses, purchased the tooling and product rights to build the Busette from Wayne Corporation. Superior by Mid Bus In 1981, some former Superior employees created Superior by Mid Bus. ...

In modern times, more small school buses are based upon cutaway van chassis than any other type.