The bus years: the Metropolitan

1974 – 1979

A licensed design: AM General's diversification into transit buses rested on someone else's coach. Flyer Industries of Winnipeg, Manitoba — Western Flyer — had designed its D700 transit bus for the Canadian market; AM General licensed the design, modified it (rectangular side windows are the visible change), and sold the result as the AM General Metropolitan. The Flyer series history dates the license agreement to 1970; the AM General reference history gives 1971. Both datings stand in print as they are carried. Production was split: bus bodies were produced in a newly leased plant at Marshall, Texas, and the buses were assembled in Mishawaka.

The Washington order: The first operator was Washington's WMATA, and the opening order made the trade press: 620 buses for the capital's Metro, at the time the largest single order for buses ever placed — the figure and the superlative are the company's own photographic history's, printed as attributed. Diesel Metropolitan production ran 1974–1978. The Flyer 700/800/900 series account totals 5,212 diesel Metropolitans sold 1974–1979, and 219 trolleybuses — electric coaches for Seattle Metro and Philadelphia's SEPTA — built in 1979, for the reference total of 5,431 buses including the 219 trolleybuses.

The articulated venture: Alongside the Metropolitan, AM General built articulated buses under partnership with the German firm Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg — the MAN SG 220 — in 1977–1979, with final assembly passing to the Marshall, Texas plant. The total is carried at 392 in one account and 399 in another; the two figures are printed as they stand. The largest single group, 150, went to Seattle.

The end of the buses: The venture did not pay as the federal-procurement logic had promised. On 31 May 1978 it was announced that the Mishawaka bus plant would be shuttered at the end of June 1978, with bus production in conjunction with MAN in Texas continuing a bit longer; the coachbuilder history records the same fact from the other side — the Mishawaka plant closed in June 1978 and production transferred to Marshall. Diesel Metropolitan production ended in 1978 and the last bus unit was completed in March 1979. The building did not stay empty in the company's plans for long: within five years it was converted again, for the vehicle that defines it still. One boundary is printed plainly: the bus assembly was Mishawaka's, but the bodies came from Marshall, and the articulated line's later assembly was Texan — the bus years belong jointly to both grounds, at the sizes stated.

Sources:

1. Flyer 700/800/900 series history — the D700 license (1970 dating), 5,212 diesel Metropolitans, 219 trolleybuses of 1979, the 5,431 total, WMATA as first operator.
2. AM General reference history (encyclopedia) — the 1971 license dating.
3. Military Trader (Doyle), "The Birth of AM General" — bus production in Mishawaka to Flyer designs, bodies at Marshall, Texas, the 620-bus Washington order as the largest single bus order of its time, the 31 May 1978 shutdown announcement.
4. Coachbuilt.com, AM General bus history — the June 1978 Mishawaka closure and transfer to Marshall; MAN articulated totals carried at 392 and 399 in the accounts.