TAM 260

	The new coach for the economical and small market niche

	Photos by the Author                                                                                               by Larry Plachno

	Several members of the intercity bus industry met in Maryland over the weekend of September 25-26, 1993 as guests of Jemco Sales and TAM-USA. Saturday's breakfast and dinner were held in the contemporary Sheraton International Hotel located on the grounds of BWI Airport outside of Baltimore. 1n between, they were transported to Belcamp, Maryland to see and inspect nine new TAM 260 coaches that had just arrived on a boat from Slovenia.

Although a demonstrator and at least one commercial TAM coach were already operating here, these nine coaches represent the first group of TAM intercity coaches to be delivered to the United States. Picking up the coaches from Baltimore harbor and their inspection prior to delivery was under the direction of TAM-USA and handled by Ken Stranger and European Bus & Truck.  Their facility in Belcamp had previously been used to import European coaches into the United States and still does a lively business in repairing, servicing and supplying parts for European coaches. The Economy Market Niche  Although essentially an economical coach, the TAM 260 is designed to be integrated into your fleet of larger, more expensive buses. The single most interesting aspect of the TAM 260 is that it is being built and marketed as an economical and possibly smaller capacity coach with big coach features--a market niche that has effectively remained vacant for years. In fact, some say that we have not had a real economical/smaller coach alternative since the late 1960s when Flexible gave up intercity  coach  production. The basic reason for the lack of a suitable coach in this particular market niche is that most of the big coach manufacturers have concentrated on the larger and more expensive bus market because it was more profitable and offered more sales potential. GMC gave up manufacturing their 35-foot coach (the P8M4108A) in 1978 because they could not offer more than a $10,000 reduction in price from their 40-foot model. Hence, the majority of operators opted for the larger unit and there were insufficient orders to warrant keeping the 35-foot coach in production.

Late September saw the first shipment of TAM 260 coaches arrive in the United States by boat from Slovenia. This photo shows some of the 260’s being checked out before leaving the Baltimore harbor. From here they are driven to Belcamp, Maryland where they are inspected, serviced and prepared for delivery. Next Page