Classic Refuse Trucks BOWLES DEALER ALBUM

S. Vincen Bowles Company
Dealer Album (Page Four)

Another fantastic Full-Pack, one of at least two sold to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. These were 25 cubic yard bodies with the typical Bowles curved lift arms but featuring "side" type forks. Sales literature of the time refer to these as "HD" models, for horizontal discharge, denoting their method of dumping. List price for this body in 1958 was $6500.00, F.O.B. Sun Valley, California.

Side view showing the tailgate in the raised position and the single lift cylinder mounted on the roof. These used the same slant-forward bustle tailgate as with the previous Denver Full-Pack, though the body bracing is quite different. Also note the spare tire carrier afffixed to the bottom of the gate.

Here's a good look at the front of the packer plate and and the twin telescopic cylinders. Note the spacing between these is much wider than on the 40 yard full pack. The reason is not known, and merely may have been a running change in the design. In either case, this is a departure from the school of thought at Dempster and E-Z Pack, which always used single, center-mounted telescopic cylinders.

One truck leaving the Sun Valley shop on a flatbed, while another waits behind the fence for the next truck eastward.

By 1959, some major changes were occurring at Bowles. Perhaps influenced by the layout of their Full-Pack models (as in the Air Force truck), Bowles began to build their Partial-Packer with twin pusher cylinders ahead of the packing blade, a method which would prove popular with Bowles, Bemars and Western/Maxon bodies for the next two decades. The old style Partial Packer with the "pullback" style cylinders would still be offered during the 1960's. We can also see from these photos that high-lift telescopic cylinders were now replacing the old body hoist cylinders on some models.

Also, 1959 marks the year that Bowles apparently entered into a distribution agreement with Arthur E. Bausenbach to bring Bowles front loaders to the east. By March of that year, Bausenbach's Buffalo Metal Container Corporation was offering these California-built Bowles bodies for sale in New York state. All prices were F.O.B. San Diego (distributor J.E. McDonald was based there), with production expected to commence in Buffalo by May of 1959.

What ever became of the Bowles-Bausenbach marriage remains a mystery, because by the early 1960's the Bowles line up was being sold by Converto Manufacturing in Cambridge City, Indiana. Converto began to advertise these bodies nationally in 1961, while Bausenbach seemed to be offering an E-Z Pack based front loader at that time. By the late 1960's, a Bowles-based partial packer was again being sold as the Bausenbach Push-N-Tilt, this time by new owner Sanitary Controls Inc. It is possible that Bowles franchised both firms to build their product, but it seems unlikely considering how geographically close the two were to each other. This question may only be answerable by those personally involved with these firms during the 1960's.

What seems certain is that Bowles equipment never seems to have penetrated the market in the midwest or eastern U.S. in any significant way, despite these two known attempts. Indeed, the firm was even facing heavy competition in their own back yard of Southern California from their local rivals.

9/3/06