The Wayne Corporation was an American manufacturer of buses and other vehicles under the "Wayne" marque. The corporate headquarters were in Richmond, Indiana, in Wayne County, Indiana. During the middle 20th century, Wayne served as a leading producer of school buses in North America. Among innovations introduced by the company were the first application of cutaway van chassis for a school bus and an improvement in structural integrity in bus body construction, involving the use of continuous longitudinal panels to reduce body joints; the design change happened before federal standards required stronger body structures in school buses. After 1980, Wayne faced difficulty competing in a market with overcapacity. Declaring bankruptcy, the company discontinued operations in 1992 and its assets were liquidated. Later in 1992, the Wayne brand was reorganized as Wayne Wheeled Vehicles, doing business through 1995. Overview Wayne is a name in school transportation that predates the familiar yellow school bus seen all over the United States and Canada. Beginning in the 19th century, craftsmen in Richmond, Indiana at Wayne Works and its successors built horse-drawn vehicles, including kid hacks, evolving into automobiles and virtually all types of bus bodies during the 20th century. Wayne products eventually included school buses, transit buses, highway coaches, military and shuttle buses, ambulances and even huge bus bodies pulled by tractor trailers used to haul oil field workers in the Middle East. Among many innovations, Wayne pioneered the side-mounted guard rails of modern school buses, inboard wheelchair lifts, and high-headroom doors (a special accommodation for mobility-challenged persons requiring head and neck support from above). The company was the first with a school bus based upon a cutaway van chassis, the Wayne Busette, a body design that would set a precedent for small school bus design, more than 40 years after its introduction. The crowning safety achievement was the "Wayne Lifeguard" structural body design introduced in 1973, which featured continuous interior and exterior longitudinal panels. The body design helped pave the way for U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for school buses, most of which became applicable on April 1, 1977. In the years after, Wayne continued to be a leader in bus safety engineering. Through nearly 160 years of existence, Wayne went through several ownership and name changes. From 1955 to 1975 alone, the business underwent periods under the ownership of Divco (as "Divco-Wayne"), Boise Cascade, "Indian Head, Inc.", and the Thyssen-Bornemisza