[Neweller]

Well folks here’s the scoop on this here mystery coach. I was kind of hoping to get Larry to chime in on my other post about the 1967 Champion Land Cruiser Luxury Coach, but he missed his chance to share any possible relation to its similarity to this 1967 Mystery Coach.

See, the Mystery Coach is actually related to this same year Land Cruiser by Custom Coach Corp. out of Columbus, Ohio who by the way is still in business today building luxury coaches of different types including a huge division that builds the Farber Specialty Vehicles. Basically the company will build you anything you could probably dream up either on a specialty designed chassis or a conversion chassis. Custom Coach is a top notch first rate builder today as they were yesterday when they actually were considered the manufacturer of this here mystery coach.

This particular mystery coach is a 1967 Columbus Cruiser owned by a Mr. Scully, which was partly built in Southern California at the Streamline factory who shortly after sold out to L.K. Newell. Now my information comes from this very nice gentleman who had purchased the Columbus Cruiser new from Custom Coach Corp back in 1967. I had interviewed Mr. Scully about this coach a few months ago as a representative of this website and with his permission recorded the whole thing. The details in my opinion are quite grand and paint another chapter in regards to the history of Newell. I don’t know if anyone exists at the Newell Coach factory that even realize this part of their history but maybe they do and have just never been shared about it with anyone I have come into contact with. I am planning on uploading the interview to a podcast of sorts sometime in the future and any one ever inclined will get to hear about a piece of history.

Here are some of the details: Custom Coach Corp had made a business partnership with Streamline to build bodies on Ford chassis that Custom Coach had supplied. They were impressed with the build integrity of Streamline products as Miles Elmers whom started Custom Coach Corp. frequently traveled in custom built RV’s etc., around the country promoting his dry laundry soap we know today as the “ALL” brand considered a revolution in the dry laundry soap industry. Mr. Elmers a self made millionaire had Streamline build the body and other details to Custom Coaches specifications and then transported the semi finished luxury coaches up to Miles at his Columbus, OH factory where his team finished out the build to their or their clients liking. Basically the same way bus or Prevost converters do it today, sort of a private label thing.

Basically what they came up with was the cousin to the Streamline (aka Newell Coach) but with some different features and body elevations. They were built with the like features such as interiors, lighting, windows, storage, and running gear all virtually related. When L.K. Newell purchased the Streamline motorcoach division, this canceled out future builds for Custom Coach. All in all I’m told the contract may have yielded up to 24 builds for Custom Coach but I can’t verify this as certain or whether not it did conclude at the Newell factory.

In and around late 1969 Mr. Newell had directly contacted the owner of this mystery coach and shared the details of his take-over of the Streamline Coaches and talked him into bringing his coach down to Miami, Oklahoma for some nice mechanical upgrades. I believe this to be right around early 1970 when Mr. Scully dropped off his beloved Columbus Cruiser coach at Newell factory to be worked over for several weeks.

The upgrades included switching out the 330 Ford engine with Ford 3 speed auto for a Ford 391 industrial engine and Allison 6 speed transmission which I actually never knew Allison were even making back in that day. They also added a hill retarder, replaced the single balloon rear tires with duals, and installed air bags amongst of course some other details. After Mr. Scully picked up his Columbus Cruiser from Mr. Newell, he was overly impressed with his pride enjoy even though we had already liked what he had. The cost for the upgrades at the time was about $15,000 which in today’s dollars would be easily 10 times that.

In recent days this coach has had the upholstery, refrigerator, exterior paint all updated. The tires are only couple of years old. She’s a creampuff and the owner said it has been so trouble free all of these years and extremely economical to work on. Mr. Scully is asking $30,000 for his coach and you could not replace it in this condition for anywhere near this. He may be somewhat negotiable.

There are many more details I am leaving out that would take a couple of pages writing and not sure that everyone wants to read it, that is why I figured I’d do a podcast later on… But, I would be glad to answer any questions I might have an answer to.