| North American Bus Industries |
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| companies based in alabama | |
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North American Bus Industries, commonly known as NABI, is a major transit bus manufacturing company based in Anniston, Alabama and was linked to Ikarus Bus and Crown Coach joint venture. Founded in 1992 , it was owned by NABI Rt. of Hungary , which was a subsidiary of First Hungary Fund Ltd of Jersey, United Kingdom . They manufacture regular, standard floor buses, Articulated Bus es, and Low Floor buses. NABI builds buses in both Hungary and the US, using many American-sourced components. The older 416/40SFW and 436/60SFW buses are based on the previous Ikarus design, and is used by AC Transit (Oakland), Maryland Transit Authority, and Miami-Dade Transit. The NABI 40LFW was the first bus to be designed in-house by NABI, and is used by OCTA and LACMTA in Southern California, as well by Phoenix's Valley Metro. NABI also had a line of buses called the CompoBus, which is built using the SCRIMP method, but it was a failure in the market, because the only customers for it was the Los Angeles Metro and Valley Metro, as well as protectionist politics in the US. NABI assembles the bus shell in Hungary, then ships the shells to Anniston, Alabama for final upfit (Done to meet "Buy America" requirements of 60% USA content). The result is what has been referred to as the "longest assembly line in the world". The recent styling theme for NABI has been the "smiling face" front end. Although the 60BRT looks like a 45C-LFW, it is an all steel design (60LFW) with heavily revised front and rear ends. The 40C-LFW "shoebox" was styled to match the 40LFW steel bus and looks virtually identical. LA and Phoenix loved the curved, sexy styling of the 45C which a molded product allows. The last 45C-LFW was manufactured for Chicago and painted in a red, white and blue motif. The Chicago contract for 25 buses was cancelled when the company realized they were losing big bucks (rumored to be $50,000 each) on each CompoBus. The Compo plant in Kaposvár , Hungary was closed in early 2005 . The FTA granted a two year wavier to allow fiberglass shell production in Hungary. It was expected that production could be moved to the US during that time. Management realized that it would always cost more to build the bus in the states. Unfortunately, the typical bus buyer has to purchase from "the lowest responsible bidder", which means if you can't provide a fiberglass bus at steel bus prices, you can't provide a bus. On January 23, 2006, NABI Rt announced that it has a preliminary agreement with NABI Gyártó és Kereskedelmi Kft and Homerica Investments B.V. for the acquisition of all of the stock of NABI Inc. and substantially all of the business and assets of NABI Rt. NABI Inc. then announced [http://www.nabiusa.com/new.cfm?y=2006#more_news that the purchase was by affiliates of Cerberus Capital Management . The transaction was completed on February 15, 2006.[http://www.nabi.hu/en/investor/index_8220D274ACAB419DAF45503237B2F82C.php] PRODUCTS Historical
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