Red bus sells for $1.3M at Florida auction

A red bus sold at auction Jan. 15 for $1.3 million in Kissimmee, Florida.

While the bus was at least partially advertised by auctioneers from Mecum Auctions, a Wisconsin-based auction company, as a Glacier National Park bus, the finer print noted it actually came from Yellowstone.

Bruce Austin, a red bus expert, owner and collector noted the bus would have originally been yellow, not red and has since been repainted. It was previously owned by Jackie and Gary Runyon.

“This (sale) is a really good number,” said Jordan Acevedo, a customer experience agent with Mecum.

“We are expecting gigantic numbers,” a commentator said as the auction commenced.

There were only White 35 red buses that actually ran in Glacier. Of those, 33 are currently being used. The other bus is in storage by the Park Service in its original condition, and the other one, No. 100, was ruined in an accident years ago, Austin noted.

The remaining 33 are operated by concessionaire Xanterra and are currently being restored in phases as part of the contract with the Park Service.

The auctioned off bus was advertised as being one of 500 buses made by the White Motor Company at the time.

Austin couldn’t say if that number was completely accurate. But he did note that White made that style of bus not just for Yellowstone and Glacier, but for other parks and attractions across the country.

Even if it ran in Yellowstone, it’s still a rare machine.

Of the fleet of 99 buses that ran in Yellowstone, there’s only about 67 or 68 of them left, Austin noted. He said White, at the time, used the best available technology it had for the buses.

The 318 CI 16A Flathead 6-cylinder engine in the bus was easy to work on and had about 55 to 60 horsepower.

The sale price of the bus worried Austin, however.

He noted legitimate collectors, historians and restorers “are being priced out of the business.”

He also worried that the insurance on the vintage buses he owns would double.

He owns several vintage buses himself, including a 1927 Cadillac touring bus that was part of a small fleet used to take President Franklin Delano Roosevelt over the Going-to-the-Sun Road in 1934 — the summer after the Highway was completed.