In 1949 Rex Anderson left the trailer company for reasons unknown to us that he had started back in 1931 in Marshall, Michigan called Anderson Coach Company and started an entirely new trailer manufacturing firm in Bay City, Michigan called Anderson Industries. Because the original company in Marshall used the name Anderson on their trailers, Rex came up with the name A B C Super-Coach, the A B C standing for “America’s Best Coach. The exterior of his new A B C line was nearly identical to the Anderson Coach. In fact the 1949 and 1950 Anderson and A B C Super-Coaches are almost impossible to tell apart. Both companies produced an excellent coach, superior in workmanship and construction and became well-known in the trailer world as high-quality upper-end trailers. Interestingly enough both manufacturers out-grew their original factories almost around the same time. Rex Anderson moved his manufacturing plant to Pinconning, Michigan at the end of 1951 where he changed the name of the company to A.B.C. Coach Co.. Anderson Coach Co. had already moved to more spacious manufacturing buildings in East Tawas, Michigan two years earlier.
Mr. Anderson believed in livable mobile homes, ones that were designed to be parked. They were not travel trailers. As early as 1953 the Pinconning plant offered a 45 foot two bedroom luxury model with a Crosley White Steel Kitchen and a full automatic laundry! Price of such a mansion on wheels? A cool $6400.00 without options! The unit weighed 7500 lbs and had a drawbar weight of 750 lbs, definitely not something you would hitch up to your typical 1953 family car and for a weekend camping trip!
The firm grew and expanded with a second plant in Loveland, Colorado in the summer of 1955. The new length of 50 feet was introduced towards the end of the same year in both manufacturing facilities and for the first time a large family could live in an ABC Super-Coach since the 50 footer was available with three bedrooms.
In 1956 ABC began the production of the outrageously spacious Ten-Wides, their largest model being a huge 10 feet wide by 50 feet long with 1, 2, or 3 bedrooms with a price tag of around $10,000.oo F.O.B. The production of such wide models was the reason of the move to the new spacious plant in Clarion, PA the same year. For a couple of months ABC was producing in both the Pinconning and Clarion factories, as well as their western Loveland factory. May 1956 saw the last ABC roll out of the Pinconning factory. It was an 8-wide.
The new Clarion factory offered almost unbelievable luxury models. Solid oak walls and cabinetry was standard. The most modern of brass fixtures were used in every room. Stainless steel cook tops, wall-ovens, and refrigerators were the norm. Thick plush carpeting in the living rooms and bedrooms, fashionable Hollywood style vanities in the bathrooms made many a prospective looker ooh and aah! In fact, the ABC mobile home was called one of the only fire-proof mobile homes on the market. The entire undercarriage was enclosed in
ABC Coach Company continued their high quality of mobile home standards and was one of the first mobile homes to receive the new Gold Seal, something that not even Spartan was able to obtain, until they were purchased by Vought Industries in November 1959. The 1960 models were still produced in the ABC high tradition but the quality and price was lowered in 1962 and each executive year saw a heavy reduction in design and quality. Two years later the factories were sold to Divco-Wayne and the once famous ABC name was used on a series of low-priced typical white box-type mobile homes. By 1966 the name of ABC, “America’s Best Coach” was taken off of the market never to be resurrected again.
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