Orion Bus Industries

Orion Bus Industries, later Orion International, was a North American bus manufacturer based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with a plant in Oriskany, New York, for final assembly of buses sold in the United States. Arnold Wollschlaeger founded it in the mid 1970s as Ontario Bus and Truck, and it became Ontario Bus Industries in 1977. The Orion II of 1983 was the first low-floor heavy duty bus. At its peak it employed over 1,200 workers, and in the early 1990s it was producing 750 vehicles for 38 US transit agencies, but after loan arrears the Government of Ontario took it over in 1994, and Western Star Truck Holdings bought it in 1995. It passed to DaimlerChrysler with Western Star in 2000 and was renamed Orion International in 2009. In April 2012 Daimler announced that it would stop taking orders and close the plants, and bus production halted in 2013, with New Flyer taking over some outstanding orders.