Thomas Built Buses is beginning pilot-scale production of a compressed natural gas (CNG) version of its Type A Minotour school bus, with full-scale production anticipated to start early next year.
IMPCO Automotive will spearhead the conversions for Thomas Built, using GM's 6.0-liter engine on 4500 cutaway chassis. The 30-passenger CARB-certified buses will use Type 1 CNG cylinders featuring 26 GGE in fuel capacity.
‘We debuted our very first compressed natural gas bus over 20 years ago,’ says Kelley Platt, president and CEO of Thomas Built Buses. ‘Since then, we've put more than 2,000 CNG buses on the road, and we are proud to add the new CNG-fueled Minotour to our family of alternative-fueled buses.’
Thomas Built also offers a propane autogas Minotour and an HDX model in CNG. A propane-powered Saf-T-Liner C2 bus will also be available in early 2014, the company says.
