1980 GMC 504.737

Sorry, I don't actually have a picture of this particular bus. It was a 1980 GMC Carpenter mini bus (or what we called a mini bus) 36 passenger handicap bus. I drove it once a week. It had a 366ci and Allison AT-500. It was governed at 45mph where as all the other Regular 54 and 60 passengers were governed at 35mhp.

I did a little photo compilation here of all the GMC's of the era. Please note, only the first picture I took. The rest were borrowed from the internet. I hope the owners of these pictures don't mind me doing this.

I do apologize for the extremely poor audio. I recorded this many years ago on cassette, which has faded with time.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• school
• bus
• GMC
• Allison

[MrWill1985]

What year did GMC redesign the front end on the Medium Duty? I noticed Baltimore County had some Wards with this style of GMC front end and the order right after that was the 1984 Waynes and the 84 Waynes have the front end that is more flat on the top and sides. But all of those got auctioned off.

[kaiyoshi2243]

@MrWill1985 The Alligator hood (old 1980's style) was available up to 1983, I believe. I know we had a few 1983 GMC Blue Birds in SC. However the story about those buses was that they had a bunch of 1980 chassis laying around still in 83. and they just slapped some blue bird bodies on them. So they were actually 1980 GMC that weren't put together until 1983. But that was the last year I saw that style front end.

[kaiyoshi2243]

@kaiyoshi2243 oops, I meant (old 1970s style)

[6V92TA]

Iv heard a few gas powered GMC and Chevy Steakbed delivery trucks sound like this. Awesome!

[kaiyoshi2243]

Thanks!

[pwarren1010]

Thats because they share the same powertrains combos

[kaiyoshi2243]

yup!

[gajda1984]

nice sound of those primitive AT-500s. the audio is better than no audio of these dying powerplants. keep up the work man!

[540allison]

allison 545 baby!

[retroolschool]

I remember these in school in the '80's, also liked the Internationals too. I remember when I started taking the school bus when I was five, and it was '70s Ford.

[gajda1984]

i remember what my district had from like 3rd to 8th grade! numbers 6 through 14, IH Waynes with 9.0L diesels, 16 and 17 early 80s Chevy waynes with 366s, 18 and 19 early 80s IH waynes with 345s, 25 through 28 Ford Waynes with 370s, 30 through 34 late 70s Wards on Chevys with 366, 35 through 40 IH waynes with 345s. 41 through 44 were chevy Carpenters with 8.2s. then on to 51 were IH Waynes with DT466s. 52 through 60 were IH thomas with dt466s the "nice" buses! wow i'm a BUS NUT!

[legsbluetrain]

My school district hat GMCs like that.They had diesel engines in them.They were Pine Bluff School District buses numbers 46-50.I think they were Wayne bodies.

[dwi189]

Back in the 1970's when I was going to school, our School district had a fleet of GMC's dating anywhere from the mid 60's through early 1970's models.

Some were the clamshell hood model seen briefly in this video.

All of them were powered by GMC V-6's.

The older ones had the 305V6 and the newer ones had the 351 V-6.

All but two of them had 5 speed sticks.

The tow newest had the 351 V-6 with the 4 speed Allison Automatic. The engine in vis sounds like a 350 or 366 V-8