KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Master’s Motors has introduced two new shuttle buses designed for commercial and government fleet operators, marking what the company says is the first major structural redesign of the shuttle bus segment in decades.
The new MM23 and MM29 models are now available nationwide after completing safety testing. Built at the company’s Kansas City headquarters, the buses feature aluminum cage construction, a wider passenger cabin, a uniform stepwell and configurable interiors intended to improve safety, reduce maintenance costs and extend vehicle life.
The product line includes a traditional 23-foot model and a new 29-foot shuttle designed for fleets that require additional passenger capacity.
Standard features include a 6061-T-6 aluminum cage joined at the floor and ceiling, aluminum track-style flooring that supports multiple seating and wheelchair configurations, a wider interior, a uniform stepwell, plug-and-play electrical harnesses, heated exterior mirrors, and backup cameras. The buses meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 220 rollover protection requirements and are fully ADA-compliant.
“Our industry has long relied on steel cage bodies, but Master’s Motors’ aluminum cage delivers comparable strength at a lighter weight and resists corrosion, helping extend vehicle life and reduce the need for frequent replacements,” said Jeff Montgomery, executive vice president of manufacturing for Master’s Motors.
“We paired that with a deeper, uniform stepwell to help reduce missteps, one of the leading causes of litigation in the industry, plus machine-routed windows for a clean, consistent fit that improves safety, quality and lifecycle value.”
Safety, operating benefits
The company said the buses are designed for airport shuttle operators, colleges and universities, senior living communities, hotels and corporate transportation fleets.
Airport operators can benefit from curved-edge flooring designed to contain spills, while senior living operators may find value in the ADA-compliant boarding features, wheelchair accessibility and uniform stepwell intended to improve passenger boarding. The aluminum track floor also allows operators to reconfigure seating layouts more easily. The platform is designed to accommodate additional chassis in the future.
“Our customers asked for a stronger, wider, safer vehicle that helps ‘Move People Forward.’ That’s why we engineered a new platform, bringing the most meaningful shuttle redesign in decades,” said John Goodbrake, CEO of Master’s Motors. “My vision is to raise the standards of our industry, so we started at home with our own team. We built our new manufacturing headquarters to ensure that the best-skilled workers in the industry could work efficiently, safely and comfortably in a temperature-controlled environment using geothermal HVAC.”
The company said its temperature-controlled production environment improves manufacturing consistency, while plug-and-play electrical harnesses eliminate the need to cut, splice, or solder wiring, reducing repair time and helping keep vehicles in service.
“Master’s Motors brings fresh engineering to a segment that saw little change since the 1980s,” Goodbrake said. “As fleet managers prioritize improved design and durability, Master’s Motors delivers solutions that address both.”
Master’s Motors manufactures the buses at a 252,000-square-foot production facility in Kansas City that shares a campus with its parent company, Master’s Transportation. The campus also includes a 42,000-square-foot parts and service facility that supports fleet operations across 12 locations nationwide.
