Dodge 500 1963 nice engine backfire love it my favorite 4 speed shift.nice wine and sound.wisconsin.

I have this playing on a bluetooth speaker.....really picks up that transmission sound.

Great video! That engine and transmission whine sounds like the gates of heaven. Beautiful sound!

This bus is a true survivor.

This brings back memories of all the times I was in school-riding in the gasoline powered school buses-and the whine of the automatic transmission brings back memories as well. You would think that they would have a 460 big block engine or bigger to pull all of that weight around-but according to the information on this video-it has a little 370 cubic inch engine-a dog.

I always remember my ride home from JHS in the early 90’s was an early 80’s Ford automatic with a gasser sounded just like this. Smellled like tuna, I guess cooling system related. Going in to school it was an early 80’s gasser with a manual.

Dang, she runs good! Back when I drove school buses in the mid 90's, we had 2 1977 Ford Thomas' With the 361 V8 and the mechanic called it an AT-500, *was probably a 540. Ran just like this bus. Would get stuck shifting back and forth between 2nd and 3rd a lot. Just like you said, they liked it all the way to the floor or just tap it. Not mid way throttle. Both our buses turned like aircraft carriers but ran good and were fun to drive. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Talking about buses that came with automatic transmissions, Ford at one time built a B model school bus that had one in the 1960s and the engine was so quiet, all you would hear is just a distant whirring sound. This one had more like a general medium duty truck engine that was built for automatic transmissions. They were very easy to drive. Sometimes when we get old, our leg that is supposed to work the clutch sometimes tends to argue and when you go to an automatic, it makes things much easier. The entrance steps are pretty strong. For a driver with a bad left leg could still climb the step while using his right leg as a lever and then he is about to get into his seat. Carpenter I think mounted their windshield washer control on the floor. I am not sure if that was because of Ford or what.

I remember that transmission sound riding the International Harvester-based school busses. Looks like the Allison automatics were also in the Ford-based busses, and automatic-equipped medium duty trucks. First gear sounds like an angry cat, "Rrreeeoowww!", and second sounds like a jet engine. Third and fourth, I guess, are fairly quiet.

Interesting vid, I learned more about the Allisons in this video than anything I've seen before. I rode loadstar 1600 / 1700 busses through school, all with the 540's and now I know why the drivers were always slamming the gas to the floor. I didn't know Allisons shifted better when rode hard. I also remember that thud / clang with the jump forward when the driver would put it in gear and it throwing you around while it decided which gear it wanted to be in. Nice ride along, thanks.

I was school age back in the 1970's....I rode GMC, Ford, and International buses back then. All of them had the same sounding Allison automatics. The only difference was the sound of the different engines but the transmission sounded the same. The International gas 345 had more of a roar to it at higher RPM's.

The fact that we had these all the way in the 1970s is so amazing man

I rode buses with that transmission in the early 80s. I remember the 1st and 2nd gear whine like it was yesterday! The front end looked different, though -- it was taller and had square headlamps. Also, some of the buses I rode ran on liquid propane. Funny thing -- Honda Accord automatic transmissions of the early 90s also had a similar wine, but only in 1st gear.

Carpenter used that style light monitor until at least 1995 when they re-branded to Crown. I always liked how the warning lights went criss-cross unlike the Doran monitors that International and Bluebird use.

Nice!

Nice gasoline

yay

Gas engine back then with brakes that squeek

I can understand why all school buses are orange on the outside, but why are they all light green on the inside?

An automatic!! You don't see many of those.

That transmission is very loud, what is it?

Pretty nice but I thought a bus this old would be stick shift.

Sounds like boring 707 engine