The Crown-Ikarus 286 is a type of transit bus that was manufactured for the U.S. market from 1980 until 1986, under a joint venture between the Ikarus Body and Coach Works (Ikarus), of Budapest, Hungary, and Crown Coach Corporation from Los Angeles, California in the United States. Loosely based on the Ikarus 280, the Crown-Ikarus 286 is a high-floor articulated bus.
Due to their use in the United States, the Crown-Ikarus buses became the first buses produced by Ikarus equipped with an onboard wheelchair lift.
After a number of production problems arose, the Crown-Ikarus 286 ended production in 1986, following the collapse of the joint venture. A total of 243 buses were produced for nine different operators.
Ikarus would again jointly produce the Ikarus 280 in North America with Ontario Bus Industries, in Canada, as the Orion III.
Background
In the late 1970s, the era of the "New Look" mass-transit buses in the United States and Canada, which had begun in the late 1950s, was coming to a close. The two largest U.S. bus manufacturers, General Motors and Flxible, ended U.S. production of their New Look buses in 1977 and 1978, respectively. By the end of the decade, production would shift from a GM/Flxible near-monopoly to a contested segment, with a number of manufacturers competing for transit operators with new-generation bus designs.
To diversify its business beyond the fragile school bus industry of the late 1970s, California-based Crown Coach sought to enter transit bus production. While its chief competitor Gillig Corporation began design work on what would become the Gillig Phantom in 1982, Crown did not have the resources on its own to develop its own design from the ground up. In 1979, Crown entered into a partnership with Hungarian bus manufacturer Ikarus Body and Coach Works.
With an annual production of 13,000 transit vehicles (triple the combined output of all U.S. transit manufacturers), Ikarus was one of the largest bus manufacturers in the world, but had never previously built any vehicles for the U.S. market. In addition to Crown Coach gaining entry into the mass-transit segment, the partnership allowed Hungary to obtain hard currency and eased a trade imbalance between Eastern Europe and the West.
Under the terms of the joint venture, final assembly of the buses would be done in Crown Coach facilities in Los Angeles. In addition to finishing the vehicles to American standards, the final assembly in California involved most of the interior work, allowing customization of the buses to the needs of each end-user. Alongside various specifications for seating design, this allowed for the inclusion of features such as wheelchair lifts for passengers with disabilities.
Sales contracts of the vehicles were managed by Crown Coach, which helped ensure that the work satisfied U.S. federal "Buy America" requirements (). All buses manufactured under the Crown-Ikarus name were considered model 286, although different orders carried a seldom-noted numerical suffix (such as 286.02 for Portland TriMet).
Production history
The first order for the Crown-Ikarus was placed in November 1979. In its Budapest factory, Ikarus produced the body shells of its Ikarus 280 articulated transit bus modified for the North American market. The largest change was the overall width of the bodyshell, from a metric-based to the body width that was becoming common in transit buses in North America. After shipment to Crown Coach in Los Angeles, the fabricated body shells were fitted with engines, transmissions and brakes. Other major assemblies included the destination signs and interior. For the first vehicles, the engines and transmissions were shipped to Hungary for installation, but subsequent examples saw the entire powertrain fitted at the Crown Coach factory.
Two different configurations of the Crown-Ikarus 286 were sold: and lengths, with either two or three entry doors. Aside from five Houston Metro examples fitted in a 61-seat suburban configuration, all versions were fitted with transit-style seats. In its 60-foot configuration, the passenger capacity was 73.