Eagle – The Movie – Part 4 (VTS 01 4)

When Prevost started coming on strong, some of their cars became part of the Trailways system by some of their small contractors. However that didn’t sit well with management in Dallas, who thought that all Trailways cars should be Eagles. The suburban Eagle, with the single rear axle, was soon seen on the streets. Eagle built a second plant in Harlingen, Texas, not too far from the Brownsville plant, when they were spending money like crazy which did not help their financial situation and contributed to their downturn. Brownsville was making a lot of money and even reengineered the A/C system and an upgraded instrument panel that was the envy of the industry. Eagle cars started to become popular for entertainer coaches and for air force bases. Around this time, Eagle was spending money like drunken sailors, which was a real concern for some people, when they should have been reinvesting it into their future. The Eagle Model 15 was a big improvement, with even better A/C systems and with a new front cap that dressed it up significantly. This was the first full 102” wide body bus. They built a high-level entertainer coach as well as a 45’ model. They even built a 35’ bus which was used for a few conversions, but didn’t sell well for seated coaches for obvious reasons, i.e. more seats = more money, with a relatively fixed asset, a bus with a driver. In 1987, another group purchased Greyhound and soon there were Eagles parked in front of Greyhound terminals and MCI buses were parked in front of Trailways terminals. The Model 20 then came out but was only a 96” wide. Eagle was beginning to start their downward spiral. Brownsville then began using inferior parts in their buses, and that came back to bite them quickly, of course. Eventually, they ended filing for bankruptcy. A Mexican consortium then bought Eagle, and they started building buses south of the border. They also started building executive coaches which were very nice.