Spartan Motors, Inc. is an engineering firm and manufacturer of custom-designed motor vehicle chassis and bodies. The company is based in Charlotte, Michigan with 870 employees (2005) and a net profit margin of 2.42% (2005). It was started in 1976 by Charles Robert McManamey[1] [2] and a group of individuals whose employer, Diamond Reo, went bankrupt[3]. Spartan mainly manufactures vehicle chassis for the recreational vehicle, emergency services, and military markets.
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Spartan Motors operates facilities in the following places:
Spartan Chassis designs, engineers, and manufactures chassis for recreational vehicles, fire trucks, ambulances, and rescue vehicles.
Crimson Fire designs and builds custom fire apparatus. It was created by a consolidation of Luverne and Quality Manufacturing.
Crimson Fire made its debut in 2003 - but their heritage stretches back more than a century.
That was the year two manufacturers, Luverne Fire Apparatus and Quality Manufacturing, joined forces under a single brand to form Crimson Fire. Luverne used its early expertise in the automotive and heavy truck industries to begin building fire apparatus in 1912. Quality got its start six decades later, catering to the Southern firefighting market. Their customers included some of the largest departments in the country include Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Buffalo and Chicago Fire Departments. Crimson Fire continues market growth into other countries including Canada, Chile, and China.
Utilimaster Corporation produces customized Parcel Delivery Vans (PDVs), walk-in vans (also known as step vans), and truck bodies. It was founded in 1973 in Wakarusa, Indiana. Previously owned by Holiday Rambler and then Harley-Davidson, it was later acquired by senior management along with an investment group led by Kirkland Messina in 1996. In November 2009, it was purchased by Spartan Motors.
Carpenter Industries was a manufacturer of school buses, transit buses, and step vans. Carpenter was founded in 1919; Spartan purchased it in 1998, but closed it down in 2001.
In 2006, Spartan began manufacturing military vehicle chassis as a supplier to two companies, Force Protection (FPI) and General Dynamics. The FPI Cougar, which uses a Spartan chassis, is one of several Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, designs recently ordered by the United States military.
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