HEADLINES
Starcraft Adds to the MFSAB Market with Prodigy XP
Before Starcraft made an addition to its multi-function school
activity bus line, its leaders asked customers about their needs. Tis included reaching out to the Head Start community via lo- cal agencies and through the company’s dealer network to learn what they would need in terms of safety and reliability. “We saw that, within the MFSAB market, it seemed like primar-
ily the end users were looking for one of two models — either a 14-passenger with school bus seats or a 14-passenger with activ- ity seats depending on their application,” said David Wright, GM of Starcraft Bus. “In our research we saw that the majority of the market came down to those two models.” Built from the ground up to utilize the same body style as
Starcraft’s Xpress shuttle bus, the Prodigy XP includes steel cage construction, two-point seat belts and Child Check-Mate as standard equipment. Te new model will join its other MFSAB offerings, the Prodigy LP and Prodigy DRW. All the pieces and parts that went into creating the Prodigy XP were “spring-boarded” off the company’s buying power, mak-
ing it easier for production
and
beneficial to cus- tomers in the form of lower costs. “Tis market is so price sensitive,” explained Wright. “We
thought that if we can have the quality with a good number of standard features included, we could keep prices low with the expectation that this will be the best-selling MFSAB.” Although the market has been soft because of budget con-
straints over the last few years, more and more states are requiring prohibiting the use of passenger vans to transport children, something that Starcraft believes will turn the market around and increase demand for this type of product. Manufac- turers originally forecasted that more than 3,000 MFSABs would eventually be manufactured each year since their introduction to the market nearly 10 years ago. But that has yet to materialize. “We think the MFSAB will soon come back strong, and we’ll be positioned nicely with this unit,” added Wright. ■
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