Propane cylinder trucks

Yes most class 7 trucks are equipped with Allison automatics.

 

Agreed, the little ones have autos.

School buses have had them since I was a kid. Missed the old manual blue birds with the 500 GMC engine....

 

Those are GM Fishbowls. Hella old school, had 671 screamin Jimmmy's in em. Early ones had various manuals but were one of the first applications of the Allison autos, because they were rear engine and a 30 ft clutch and shifter linkage is more vague than the federal gov't, and got real old, real fast.
The Bluebirds he's talking about are probably the ones built on a straight truck chassis.

 

No we had school buses built on a truck frame and they were able to carry 50 souls. Rather nice but hell to pay on a hill.

The bus you featured took me back to Baltimore a while, we called those Fixits. Because they were always fixing something on it. Those were fun to ride as long you stayed over the steer axle and away from the middle which rocked too much side to side.

Looking at them now as a trucker, those things must have been a royal pain to drive in the city. With a clutch god knows only how far in the back of the bus and a transmission that was somewhere between let's go and whoa every block... ugh. lol.