COLUMBUS, Ohio - Seventy-five buses of most every type and description went on the auction block last month in what may have been the largest sale of its kind conducted in the coach industry.
The heavily publicized "Public Webcast Auction" featured coaches, shuttles and midsize buses being liquidated as part of the sale of Columbus-based Greenlawn Transit and Bus One Inc., as well as repossessions and turnbacks owned by CIT Equipment Rental & Finance, and surplus buses being sold by others.
The auction was conducted simultaneously via the Internet and at the Westin Great Southern Hotel in Columbus by one of the nation's largest asset management and disposition firms, Great American Group of Woodland Hills, Calif.
Great American conducts asset liquidations across the U.S. for an assortment of high-profile clients. Its current list of liquidations includes sales for Joann Fabrics & Crafts, Spiegel Inc., and Fleming Foods, the former giant food supplier to Kmart.
While the sale was considered a success by the principals it nevertheless disappointed, doubtlessly reflecting among other things the weak resale market in the coach industry and the fact many of the buses being sold were from second- or third-tier suppliers.
The buses and coaches being sold by Philip Schaeffing III, president of Greenlawn Transit and Bus One, accounted for roughly one-third of those available at the auction. Schaeffing said the sale didn't turn out as well as he had hoped, with buses selling cheaper than he expected. Schaeffing has sold his coach businesses, minus any buses, to Croswell Bus Lines of Williamsburg, Ohio. (See story on page XX.)
Schaeffing's view of the sale was echoed by Bert Jones, who coordinated the sale for Great American Group.
"It went pretty good," he said. "It's never good enough. You just have to accept what you get."
Jones pulled together buses from across the U.S. for the sale. In fact, while many of the buses were available for inspection in the yard of Greenlawn Transit and Bus One in Columbus, others were at 19 different locations stretching from California to Florida.
The oldest bus being sold was a 1975 Prevost LeMirage and the newest were 2000 model Blue Bird LTC-40s. Six newer LTC-40s ended up being auctioned.
There was a large assortment of cutaways, ranging from a 1986 Ford E-350, to a 2000 Krystal Koach F-550 20-passenger shuttle. A large percentage of the midsize buses were from rental car fleets, including nearly 20 Metrotrans Eurotrans shuttles.
There also were five school buses, plus a small assortment of rag-tag junked, crashed and burned buses.
The auction included a one-time celebrity bus. Lot No. 1 was a 1997 Setra S217 HDH, 58-passenger tour coach that was featured at the Setra stand on the floor of the 1997 Motorcoach Expo in Charlotte, N.C. The bus has a striking cosmic livery of planets and stars. Schaeffing had purchased the bus secondhand a few years ago from a friend.