The Myth of the Superior Hungarian Technology Vol. II. – Ikarus Conquers North America Chapter 1.
In the second volume of this ongoing series we’re going to look at the largest bus manufacturer in the world – and how they tried to enter the North American market the first time.
Let’s go on a little journey down memory lane to immediately after the Second World War: everything is in ruins, especially the train lines – which is a kind of problem when you have to rely on tracks to deliver people and goods in large quantities from one point to the other. And while the more important railway connections were being restored, a larger emphasis was levied on the road network than before. Lorries and buses can be pushed into service faster, they are much more flexible to operate so in short order wrecks were being collected and rebuilt in order to meet demands. In the immediate post-war years these old buses along with a handful of imports were still the backbone of transportation companies’ fleets, despite the newly nationalised Ikarus company building new buses in ever increasing numbers – a lot of these products along with food and money had to be paid as war reparations to the Allies, specifically the Soviet Union.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to the Reader that these post-war Ikarus buses weren’t exactly on the forefront of technological revolution: their body-on-frame, front engined-rear wheel driven structure wasn’t significantly different from buses of the 1930s, they were cramped on the inside, slow and uncomfortable to travel in, and weren’t exactly known for their reliability. One of the main point of contention for any road-going vehicles of the time was the engine. In 1949 the former Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works, then Csepel Works purchased the licence of a four-cylinder diesel engine and despite efforts to modernise and improve the original design, it became increasingly clear that by the 1960s it became desperately outdated. Unfortunately domestic efforts to design and build modern, adequately powerful diesel engines were… unsuccessful, to say the least. The resulting JÁFI (‘Institute of Vehicle Development’) engines turned out to be unreliable, under-powered, and uneconomical. This very public failure of Hungarian industry prompted decision makers to approach Western manufacturers in a hope to acquire a new, modern diesel engine for their purposes. So why am I talking about engines? I will get there, but trust me it’s going to be fundamental to understand the concepts coming later on. The final result was the acquisition of the licence to manufacture MAN’s D2156 six cylinder diesel engine, which was at the time a new construction, absolutely a top-of-the-line power plant for heavy vehicles. And it finally enabled Ikarus to realise it’s master plan.
The problem with manufacturing buses mainly is that you can’t just make *one* type of bus to do everything: there are different requirements for city buses, intercity buses, coaches, worker transport buses etc. Designing and building several different types of chassis, bodies, engines, running gear etc. is not really feasible, also renders operating them more expensive and difficult. Now that Rába can produce a modern diesel engine in different configurations, it was time to end the stop-gap measures: a new family of buses are needed, with wide variety of options and configurations with the most interchangeable parts possible. Initially seven variants were proposed, that later on increased to 12. The real secret of modularity was in the body: the boxy shape was designed to maximise interior space, and it also made manufacturing easier. In order to accommodate different variants of the 200 family, the body could be lengthened to accommodate any chassis, also had some tolerance in building taller or smaller structure with the only slight drawback that the width of the body was limited. This will become important later on I promise. The body was welded together from grid sections of steel tubes, covered by simple stretched plates, the only complicated shapes were on the front and the back as they curved to meet up with the sides. The overall body design was entrusted to László Finta, who from then on until the end of the company was the lead designer of Ikarus. His simple, symmetric lines made a beautiful and sedate, dare I say friendly rectangle with large windows to make it bright and airy in the inside. I’m not going to go through every experimental bus Ikarus built to refine the concept of the 200 series, although some of them were really well ahead of their time – the rear engined Ikarus 242 prototype had a lower entry floor, only one step lead into the interior of the bus, with a high floor in the back, something that gradually became available twenty years later. The bus underwent exhaustive testing, including rolling it on its roof to see how it behaves in a crash – leading to some design adjustments to prevent the collapse of a roof during a rollover accident.
The 200 series became the most manufactured bus type in the world: until 1998 over 230.000 examples were built and used all around the world. The Ikarus 280 bendy bus remained in service in Budapest until 2022. It’s also inspired a feature film in which the then-new generation of Hungarian filmmakers collaborated and this is the object I think of when you say the word “bus”. From cheap workers transport to East German leader Erich Honecker’s luxury bus, from Vladivostok to Kuwait City, these buses operated all over the world, and I’m pretty sure you can meet with them on every continent still for years to come. But that’s not important.
What’s important that in the 1970s the United States have experienced something called the fuel crisis. I’m sure that means something to my American audiences, needless to say there was an increasing demand for public transport especially in metropolitan areas. But immediately there was a problem. General Motors was just about to wind down its production of “New Look” buses – and beyond that, no manufacturer had an articulated bus in its portfolio. Not that there was any significant need for high-capacity buses before, so that much is understandable, but it opened the door for manufacturers abroad to enter into the North American market.
Also at the time McDonnell Douglas was also interested in selling passenger aircraft to Hungarian flag carrier airline MALÉV, but of course trying to sell multi-million dollar aircraft to a country that’s not exactly awash with cash is a tad bit difficult. Usually the compensation of Western companies were made up of some small amount of cash accompanied by the delivery of goods – usually agricultural products, this is what the Hungarian economy was able to produce at scale, for example a significant amount of the licencing cost for the MAN-derived Rába engine was paid in apples – and on this occasion it seemed logical that Ikarus buses could be used as currency. While the McDonnell Douglas deal didn’t materialise in the end – let’s face it, MALÉV could not operate even a single DC-10 economically at the time – but it opened the door for Ikarus anyway: in 1975 the city of Los Angeles were asking for offers to supply its public transport with city buses. Of course even then protectionist legislation mandated that the buses use at least 50% American-made components and they had to be assembled locally – this has become even more strict in the following decades. After much deliberation the project landed on designer Anna László’s desk, who happened to be the wife of László Finta – yes, her maiden name is the same as her husband’s first name, can we move on now please.
Redesigning a bendy bus that was built for European specifications and safety regulations is not a trivial job, and while most of the modifications were relatively straightforward, there were some problems. First and most obviously, the 200 series Ikarus buses, to conform to European standards were all 2500 mm wide, but regulations in the US demanded more than that. To get around completely redesigning the body, a decision was made to simply taper the front and the back to meet up with the standard fascia and rear. It’s an almost completely imperceptible change from the familiar Ikarus 280. Ikarus made a bespoke chassis, took a Cummins NHHTC-290 diesel engine with an Allison automatic transmission and thus the Ikarus 286 was born. In 1977 with the help of McDonnell Douglas, the prototype was introduced to Los Angeles and the cherry red bus with Anna László at the wheel began their tour. The second stop was in Portland, where officials of TriMet were delighted and not a little patronising to mention their surprise that Anna is capable of handing such a long bus. And the 286 was indeed long, but with its mid-engined construction and passive rear steering it had a surprisingly small turning circle. While there were some problems – notably the main breaking system needed additional cooling – the bus, nicknamed “Anna’s Baby” or “Big Red” was extensively tested in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, even left the mainland for a stint in Honolulu. Anna and the bus spent close to two years in the US before she had to return to finalise the details for the production variant, unfortunately she was treated similarly like many other talented people in the old country – first she was sidelined then removed from the project altogether, finally she saw no other choice but to leave Ikarus. I can only speculate but in my experience, usually these stories are the result of company politics, and probably a whole lot of sexism. The story of the red prototype 286 isn’t much better: after its tour in the US the bus was brought back to Hungary where they used it as a technology demonstrator, and then later on it was cut up to pieces at the factory when it was found to be taking up too much space.
Despite all of this with local manufacturer Crown Coach the serial production of the 286 began in 1980, initially with all production buses being assembled in Budapest, then later on the completed bodies were shipped to Crown Coach’s Los Angeles facility for final assembly with the engine, gear box, and running gear. While the cooperation was deemed very successful – buses were sold to Louisville, Portland, Houston, Milwaukee (where the last examples were retired in 2000), Albany, Honolulu, and several Californian cities. The marriage with Crown wasn’t exactly amicable, contributing factor was the difficulty of communication and the precarious financial state of the company. Operators weren’t exactly happy with the first deliveries: buses were arriving at a slow pace and they suffered from various quality issues: the new, glued-in glasses were shattering, the pneumatic doors had a mercurial temper and the wheelchair lifts were having more off days than on. Of course various lawsuits followed, the aforementioned Tri-Met complained that all the maintenance manuals were in Hungarian thus rendered them useless to them. (It’s a very peculiar complaint, the Ikarus library is basically full of maintenance manuals written in at least twelve languages, and I was able to find English language ones so this seems like a stretch but it’s not unlikely) The other issues mentioned in the suit – cracks on the frames, breakdowns, problems with the hydraulic system, the air conditioning, and the air suspension – were sadly a known problems with other 200 series buses.
Finally after Crown Coach bowed out and unceremoniously went out of business, Ikarus needed another North American partner to continue, and with the help of Ontario Bus Industries they supplied Toronto and Ottawa with further Ikarus 286s, with some Canada-specific modifications. But this takes us up to 1989, and while political changes are happening in the Old Country, Ikarus is preparing to mount another assault on the US market, this time by itself. But that’s another story for another day. Thank you for indulging me, next time we will continue with some free market shenanigans, Anniston, AL and how you can drive an Ikarus derivative now in Grand Theft Auto V.
sources:
https://omnibusz.blog.hu/2017/10/30/igy_indult_a_200-as_ikarusok_palyafutasa
https://magyarbusz.info/2020/05/16/anna-babaja-a-meggypiros-ikarus-286-os-tortenete/