The new Custom Trim interior incorporated the Green Machine's improved bath and more formal dash panel, but instead of the sofa under the picture window it featured #63104's long "bookcase" cabinet - with an interesting two-section folding table.
The earlier molded front corner panel concept was taken a large step further, with what appears to be a fully-molded one-piece front lower body. The new section extended all the way back to the wheel wells, with a jutting underbite profile that changed the whole look of the coach. Separate round trim rings for the headlights and turn signals were used, and a new fabricated aluminum bumper was faired into the body.
Plans were made, deluxe brochures were printed, press releases were issued, and the new squarebody Travalon was unveiled at the 20th annual San Francisco National Sports and Boat Show, January 31 thru February 9, 1964 (at the Cow Palace). Presumably the brochures were distributed at the show, but the only known surviving copy is the one saved (and scanned) by supervisor Ray Page.
In the days following the Show, the atmosphere around the shop changed. Page remembers "some of the tooling was being destroyed and I believe Dave was having "words" with Jones and Schaffer." Robert Wollard recalls hearing scuttlebutt that "Dave's design was a mess and that they had essentially reinvented the whole thing so that soon they would be able to ease him out of the picture and it would be theirs."
If the new body shape was indeed an attempt to stop paying Peterson's licensing fees, they hadn't counted on the fact that Dave was simply never the type of man to accept such a threat without pushing back. In any case, the Prescolite Motor Coach Division ceased operation on February 27 1964, and the employees were all dismissed.
If the new body shape was indeed an attempt to stop paying Peterson's licensing fees, they hadn't counted on the fact that Dave was simply never the type of man to accept such a threat without pushing back. In any case, the Prescolite Motor Coach Division ceased operation on February 27 1964, and the employees were all dismissed.
The squarebody Travalon eventually ended up in the hands of a wheelchair-bound Korean war Army veteran and Justice of the Peace in Shelby Montana named James Clinton Farrar. Jamie consulted with Peterson in November 1975, wanting to convert the coach to the side-engine configuration developed for the 600 series coaches in 1971. An odd fire 90 degree Buick V6 engine was installed, along with new windshields and a fresh paint job.
Farrar listed the coach for sale in the 1991 Whales on Wheels newsletter but didn't find a buyer. Walt Davison #366 visited on one of his cross country rambles and took the attached color photos. He went back a few years later and found that Farrar had passed away in 1994. He tried to find out what happened to the coach, but was told that the engine had been removed and the remainder hauled away to the landfill.
The 1964 Travalon by Prescolite brochure can be seen here:
Very interesting
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