
Flxible Metro

The Flxible Metro was a transit bus that was assembled and manufactured by the Flxible Corporation from 1983 until 1995. From 1978 until early-1983, when Flxible was owned by Grumman, the model was known as the Grumman 870, with a Grumman nameplate. The earlier model 870 experienced a large number of major design defects and deficiencies, some of which led to the filing of lawsuits against the company by purchasers, and the successor "Metro" model addressed those defective design issues.
Over the combined 17-year production history, a total of 14,456 were built, of which 4,642 were model 870 and 9,814 were Metros.
History.
Under the ownership of Rohr Industries since 1970, while their very popular Flxible New Look was still in production, Rohr began development of what would become the "Grumman 870 Advanced Design Bus". The Grumman 870 bus was one of two advanced-design buses (the other being the Rapid Transit Series (RTS II) developed by rival General Motors and later taken by MTS). Both models were compromises by the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA), which sought to develop a "Transbus" design that would be "attractive, roomy, comfortable", and easier for elderly and disabled customers to board, accepting these two models as compromises. At the time, the federal government would subsidize the purchase of only the 870 or the RTS II.
In 1978, Rohr sold Flxible to Grumman for US$55 million, with the sale including the sale of two prototypes of what would become the 870. In spite of the fact that the second prototype failed testing as the result of a cracked "A" frame, and with an endurance test not yet performed, Grumman decided that the 870 was ready for production, and discontinued the Flxible New Look almost as soon as the purchase closed (more in "Litigation resulting" below). The first 870 rolled off the assembly line in spring 1978. Under Grumman ownership, Grumman-Flxible (as the company was called at the time) received a major order of buses from the New York City Transit Authority along with other agencies. The NYC Transit Authority order, built in 1980, is notable because this batch would expose the design flaw in A-frame noted during testing: the inability of the bus to withstand wear and tear in cities where potholes were a problem, forcing all 870s built until that time to be taken out of service beginning that December while repairs to the A-frame were made, which would cost Grumman $7 million to fix. A total of 2,656 buses, including buses in Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, Houston, Los Angeles and Orange County, California needed to be fixed.
Eventually, Grumman was forced to sell the line to General Automotive Corporation in 1983 for $41 million, a 25-percent loss after developing the "Flxible Metro" which addressed all of the shortcomings of the Model 870 in 1982. Under the ownership of General Automotive, the Flxible nameplate was restored to the buses.
Production continued until late 1995, when financial problems prompted the company to suspend production and lay off most of its workforce at the Delaware, Ohio, factory. The layoffs were initially planned to be temporary, but ultimately became permanent, and in 1996 Flxible was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and liquidated. Parent company General Automotive would meet the same fate as Flxible (bankruptcy and liquidation) the following year.
The last Flxible Metros delivered were ones delivered in November 1995 to Monterey-Salinas Transit (Monterey, California), and the Baltimore Metropolitan Transit Authority (Baltimore, Maryland). However, neither of these orders included the Metro with the highest serial number (106591), which had been delivered the previous month to Columbus, Ohio. The official production total for the Metro model from company records is 9,820, but there is strong evidence indicating that the last six of the 25-bus order for Baltimore were never built, and this makes the total more likely to be 9,814 units.
In 1995, some used 870s were purchased from the Central Ohio Transit Authority (Columbus, Ohio) by Kirov, Russia, where they were used until 2004.
Litigation resulting.
The Grumman era of production would result in a number of lawsuits related to defects in the A-frame of the 870, involving either Flxible's former owner Rohr or the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York.
Model history.
The model history of the Grumman 870/Flxible Metro is as follows: