Despite five years of limited success in marketing Chinese buses and motorcoaches in North America, a handful of companies show few signs of giving up trying.

Two of them are working to introduce new models in the U.S. and Canada soon; a third is planning to try a new version of a Chinese import that has been in and out of the market, and a fourth is believed to be in the early stages of studying the possibility of joining them.

Heres whats stirring:

Bus & Coach America Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif., is growing closer to announcing plans for the introduction of an over-the-road motorcoach built in China by an Australian manufacturer.

LZ Bus Line of suburban St. Louis is shooting for the February introduction of a new coach built by the Chinese bus manufacturer that produced the former BCI Falcon.

Foton America of Brookfield, Conn., plans to have a transit bus produced by a Chinese builder ready to go early next year.

And ABC Companies of Faribault, Minn., is reportedly working on possibly distributing a Chinese-built motorcoach. However, ABC declines to comment on the report that has been circulating in the industry for months.

Interest by the four companies comes in the wake of the somewhat dismal record of U.S. companies trying to sell Chinese-made or -designed buses.

The drive to bring Chinese buses to the U.S. began in earnest in 2006 when three companies announced plans for a variety of models.

The early entries

Stallion Bus Industries of New York unveiled plans to introduce a 35-foot shuttle bus; Bus and Coach International of Kansas reported it was bringing in a 45-foot motorcoach, and Rexhall Industries of California said it was about to market three small coaches and a transit bus.

Three years later, G&K Automotive Conversion Inc. of California announced it planned to introduce a 45-foot coach through a newly formed subsidiary, Greenkraft Inc.

Today, Stallion is the only one of the four with Chinese models available to the industry.

Stallion President John Gore said the company is assembling 30- and 35-foot coaches and a 40-foot transit bus at a plant in Elkhart, Ind.

"Weve sold a lot of buses so far this year and business has been very good," he said, adding that more than half of sales are coming from repeat customers.

It hasnt been an easy time for Stallion, by any means. The company closed its initial assembly plant in California, merged with shuttle bus builder TMC Group, and moved manufacturing to TMCs facility in Elkhart. TMC is best known in the industry by its marketing name, Ameritrans.

Gore said the move was made because labor and other expenses were less and the facility was more centrally located to serve both East and West Coast customers.

The also rans

BCI marketed its 45-foot Falcon coaches for four years before fading from the industry amid a high-profile squabble between its founders, investors, and a group of executives who ultimately took over the business. The company last showed the Falcon at UMA Motorcoach Expo 2010.

Rexhall, according to spokeswoman Hillary Rex, brought in some Chinese buses early on but quit doing so a short time later. "We arent doing anything with it right now," she said.

Greenkraft still holds the rights to distribute 40- and 45-foot coaches made by Chinese builder Ankai of Hefei City, the capital of Anhui province, but has yet to market any because financing has not been available, according to sales manager Frank Ziegler.

Instead, he said the company is concentrating on a line of Chinese trucks it imports and will switch to buses when the financing picture clears.

Industry observers offer a barrage of reasons for the failed attempts to sell Chinese buses in North America trouble getting and offering financing, questions about reliability and quality, lack of a strong parts and service network, and the struggling U.S. economy among them.

Trying to make it work

How well the new entrants will do is anyones guess.

Bus and Coach America has some familiar faces directing its operation and could be the first to come to market with a new Chinese motorcoach. Heading the venture are Larry Brenner, president, and Sharad Agarwal and Andrew Fung, executive vice presidents, all former top executives of the failed BCI.

The three have one thing going for them that their earlier venture did not a partnership and distribution agreement with one of Australias largest bus and coach builders, BCI Group. The only link their former company had with BCI Group was that the Australian company allowed it to use the BCI name.

While word on what the company is planning to do in the U.S. and Canada has not yet been made public, industry sources say Bus & Coach America is preparing to bring in Chinese-built coaches by way of the Australian company.

They will be built at a new $200 million production facility BCI Group opened in June in Xiamen in East Chinas Fujian province. BCI Group said in a press release when it opened the plant that the facility would allow it to reach target markets in North America, as well as well-established markets in Australia and New Zealand.

Coaches manufactured at the plant unlike the Falcon that BCI imported will be produced for markets outside of China and will not carry Chinese vehicle identification numbers. This, according to some in the industry, could give the company an advantage over other Chinese-built buses sold in the U.S.

Bus and Coach America said it would not comment on specifics of the coach it plans to market until a formal announcement is made. That could come in the next two or three months.

An Expo unveiling

Meanwhile, LZ Bus plans to revive and rename the Falcon and introduce the yet unnamed new model at the United Motorcoach Association Expo in Long Beach, Calif., in February, according to spokesman James Liang.

He said the newly formed company is associated with Bonluck Bus, the East China bus manufacturer that built the Falcon and remains interested in the U.S. motorcoach market. "They still want to be a player here," he said.

To help smooth the way for the introduction of the new model, LZ Bus has set its sights on building a relationship with operators who own the 110 Falcons that were sold by BCI and who were largely left without parts and service assistance when BCI folded.

Liang said the company met with Falcon owners earlier this year to find out their needs, and later invited them to have their mechanics meet with Bonluck engineers who were visiting the U.S.

In addition, LZ Bus also has set up a parts warehouse in St. Louis where most parts are available for immediate shipping, and it has established service centers in 10 major cites around the country.

Liang said LZ Bus also is offering for sale at its offices in St. Louis more than two-dozen Falcons that were initially built for BCI. Additional Falcons, with 07 engines, also could be headed to the U.S.

The name of the new Bonluck model LZ will be importing has not been announced, but it will not be called the Falcon.

Foton being tested

The timetable for the Foton transit bus reportedly will depend on how well one of the models performs in testing currently under way at the Altona Bus Research and Testing Center in Pennsylvania, according to U.S. sales manager Jared Schnader.

He said a low-floor, CNG-powered Foton has been at the center since late last year and testing is going well and should be completed by the end of this year.

Seven dealers have been signed up in the U.S. and Canada, and a deal is nearing completion for a facility in California where the buses will be assembled on a Chinese-built shell.

While ABC declines to comment on the persistent reports its looking into importing a Chinese bus, several sources confirmed the idea is under consideration and has the blessing of Van Hool, which owns about 30 percent of ABC.

The cost of a new, North American- or European-built motorcoach is out of reach of many operators today, and a quality, lower-cost bus from China that has financing and lots of support might draw support from those operators, suggest some industry executives.