| Author |
Message |
Jim in California
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 2:53 am: | |
http://www.a-zbus.com/listings/l0085.html
I mean...jeez, if you're gonna do this, do it RIGHT, right?
Dayum.
Put a whole motorcycle shop with drive-in ramp in the lower rear 12 feet. Put a living room, kitchen and bath stuff plus storage in the rest of the downstairs. Put three separate adult sized bedrooms upstairs PLUS a modest forward upper living/hangout area.
Man. |
Phil Dumpster
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 3:55 am: | |
Those are the Ex NASA tour coaches, right?
Those aren't "street legal" in most states and getting the required permits to travel with it would be a problem. |
Jim in California
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 4:22 am: | |
Ah. I see.
Oh well. A guy can dream . |
Marc Bourget
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 7:34 am: | |
IIRC, When NASA got rid of them, they all went at auction for less than $11K back in 1999 or so. |
Jeff Pritchard (Jeffpritchard)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 11:06 am: | |
Just for the sake of learning something here, what makes it not street legal? Is it the height? Or is it too long?
Do both of those front wheels turn?
jp |
Russell Barnes (Neoruss)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 11:42 am: | |
I bought one of these for parts w/o the 8V-92 motor/trans/radiators. I paid $500 and stripped what I wanted and junked the rest to use in my 40 ft. Skyliner. There were rough ones and good ones.
These were 48' long, held 109 passengers, both front sets of tires turned, as well as the tag on the one I got. An acquantance in WI has one and is talking about shortening to 45', but keeping both front axles.
These and mine are 13' 6" high and there were some earlier models used at the '84 Olympics in L.A. that were 14' 4" and had 6V-92's. Most of the 14's went to NYC and had the tops cut off to operate as open top tour buses.
I'm currently reconstructing mine. Repairing the few rusted areas, minor crash damage and modifying to fit my tastes. When done it will be 72" headroom up and down, since wife and I are 68" that will be fine, but not for everybody. I also am installing a 12v. elevator, afterall it is a "high-rise". |
RJ Long (Rjlong)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 11:53 am: | |
Those Neoplans are forty-eight feet long and thirteen feet high. They're three feet over the legal limit for single vehicles in every state.
They spent their entire career at 25 mph going round in circles hauling tourists at the Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic Coast in FL, basically on private property, so no special permits were needed.
A-Z has had them on the market for over FIVE years now, and previous busnuts have reported that they're total rust buckets. Over-priced horses that have been ridden hard and put away wet. Probably their only redeeming feature is that they've got 8V92TAs in them.
Oh, Jeff, you guessed correctly - both front axles steer these behemoths.
FWIW,
RJ
PD4106-2784
Fresno CA |
Jim in California
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 12:10 pm: | |
What about this one?
http://users.cwnet.com/~thall/neoplan.htm
Single front axle, almost certainly 45' or under, street registered in Florida...
?
Mind you, for some of the remote or smaller-road places I might want to go, still way impractical. |
James Maxwell (Jmaxwell)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 12:11 pm: | |
I recall being at Kennedy shortly after they got these things and I was fascinated by them. A driver arranged for me to go to the garage area and look them over. I spent 3-4 hrs. climbing around in and out. Years later, shortly before they got rid of them, I was back and was amazed at the generally "sorry" condition of them. Most had deteriorated to the point that they were actually un-safe to use.
Jim: Forget that rear garage, that's engine and drive-train all the way up to in front of the rear drivers, unless you care to put it up top. |
Russell Barnes (Neoruss)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 1:08 pm: | |
The one advertized in FL is an older model, somewhere in 70's. The concept is there, I don't know the height of those but the front view shows a tall panel below the top windshield. I have a hunch this might be over 13' 6" which is a problem in many states and many roads. 13' 6" is bad enough. I can easily get parts such as windshields for my '81, but once too old things like that will be difficult.
BTW, when I first saw a 40' Neoplan Skyliner it was about '90 in North New Jersey. A charter company used them to shuttle folks from NYC to Atlantic City to gamble. Later, after I bought mine, I talked to the head mechanic at the place to find out why they sold them. They loved them, they produced more profit per mile than Eagles, MCI's, GM's, etc. because the Neoplan 40' carried 79 vs. a typical bus with 49 burning the same amount of fuel, they handled like sportscars with fully independent suspension and they were the most modern looking at the time in the 80's. I asked why they got rid of them? Seems that some tribes of gamblers got drunk in Atlantic City and on the ride back to NYC used to play chicken by sticking their head out emergency hatches with the bridges on the Garden State Parkway. After the second de-capitation the charter companies insurance provider said; "SELL THEM". |
Jim in California
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 1:12 pm: | |
"I dunno, officer, he seems to have just LOST HIS HEAD!" |
Mike (Busone)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 5:09 pm: | |
The headless bus man, eh eh eh. |
Henry R. Bergman, Jr. (Henryofcj)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 5:36 pm: | |
Wasn't there a movie made once titled "The Big Big Bus?" If memory serves, (and I kinda doubt it) it was a double decked articulated, huge, nuclear powered, did 100 mph and had about everything including a pool and tennis courts. Wow!! And NOW can I have more wine? |
James Maxwell (Jmaxwell)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 8:10 pm: | |
Yes Henry, since your memory is still intact, you may have 1 more glass (or bottle). |
Dave Hartshorne (Yeeolde48)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 9:29 pm: | |
Hi Guys, My dream bus was an old London double decker, there is even a junk one here in Cincinnati, but really nice ones can be bought cheap in the UK, and shipping is under $2k. Problem is the height, and need to permit for every trip. I checked with Ohio DMV and they would not allow registration for regular street use, only under special permit, and would require pre-posting a route for every trip. I do not remember the height, but just that it was about 18 inches over the legal limit. The old ones were front engined, so you could drive a car right in the back. Oh well, there are a few around, but mostly converted to resteraunts.
Dave
PD4501-304 |
sherryd4104
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 9:33 pm: | |
Are the Bussin 2005 rally we took our 11 yr. old son to the Kennedy Space Center and of course got in a conversation with our bus driver. He was telling us about driving the Neoplan and how there was always a fight about who got to sit on the top deck. He would tell them not to get in a hurry to go up top because the bus did fall over from time to time. That put a stop to the fuss. He also said when NASA decided to replace them after 12 years the price of new ones rocketed (get that) to 1 million dollars each. MCI was then choosen. I think ours was a model D4500. We had a great time with Alex, our driver.
Sherryd4104 |
Johnny
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 14, 2005 - 12:26 am: | |
"Those Neoplans are forty-eight feet long and thirteen feet high. They're three feet over the legal limit for single vehicles in every state."
I'm not sure (never seen them in person), but it seems to me that shortening one by 37" would be doable without major surgery. |
Dr. Frankenstein, Bus Surgeon
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 14, 2005 - 9:32 am: | |
Depends what you consider major surgery.
On one end you have a motor and drive train.
On the other end you have a driver and entrance.
In the middle, you have, well, the middle.
Seems cutting 37 inches from the bus is gonna be "major" surgery no matter how you slice it! |
Johnny
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 14, 2005 - 10:03 am: | |
Maybe not...how long are the front & rear bumpers? |
Sean Welsh (Sean)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 14, 2005 - 11:21 pm: | |
Folks,
These coaches have been on the market so long now that this whole discussion is very old hat. If you'd care to have a look at some of what's already been done/written, surf over to the "Spaceliner" group on Yahoo and paw through the archives. (Full disclosure: I am the moderator of said group).
The short story is that, while these coaches are road-legal in four or five states, they are over-dimensional in the other 45. Cutting 3' out is non-trivial -- there's no way to take it off the front or the back, and taking it out of the middle creates steering geometry problems with the dual steer axles (removing the second steer axle can mitigate this). And yes, these are rust-buckets that all sold for less than 10k at government auction (although, admittedly, A-Z has put some money into them to get them saleable).
I looked at these coaches very carefully when they were first auctioned. Caveat emptor.
-Sean |
Bruce Henderson (Oonrahnjay)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 3:50 pm: | |
Dave said: "Hi Guys, My dream bus was an old London double decker, there is even a junk one here in Cincinnati, but really nice ones can be bought cheap in the UK, and shipping is under $2k. Problem is the height, and need to permit for every trip. I checked with Ohio DMV and they would not allow registration for regular street use, only under special permit, and would require pre-posting a route for every trip. I do not remember the height, but just that it was about 18 inches over the legal limit. The old ones were front engined, so you could drive a car right in the back. Oh well, there are a few around, but mostly converted to resteraunts.
Dave
PD4501-304"
__. Yeah, the standard height in the UK is 14'4" which is *way* above the 13'6 allowed in 35 of the eastern states (a few western states allow 14'). The trick is "low-bridge" buses in the UK. There are critical bridges (or railroad underpasses in the case of Oxford) in Newcastle, Essex, and Oxford that require lower than normal buses. Since it's more expensive to build a lower bus, the operating companies attempt to buy as few as possible so the "low-bridge" buses are hard to find. But, they ARE there if you look for them.
__. The older "half-cab" buses are generally much smaller than the more modern "rear engine" buses -- the older buses are also slower and much less modern mechanically (which may be a double-edged sword). There are a few modern buses that are longer than the standard 30' length, so the ultimate US import would be a "low-bridge/33" bus.
__. Recent shipping quotes range from $5K to $19K and although a $5K voyage involves a tram steamer that goes to Guadaloupe, Martinique and Puerto Rico on the way, it works well.
__. As always, "don't ask me how I know"!!!
Bruce Henderson, Wallace NC USA |
|