About 95% of the CE model school buses produced by IC Corp. (www.IC-Corp.com; Warrenville, IL) are “School Bus Yellow.” No surprise there. But what is surprising is that some $350,000 per year is being saved by eliminating the painting process on a single exterior part, a vertical transition panel (there’s one on either side) that is between the engine compartment and the passenger compartment. The yellow parts are molded-in color. They’re using a polyolefin alloy developed by Solvay Engineered Polymers (www.solvayengineeredpolymers.com; Auburn Hills, MI), INDURE X-210A. The material meets all of the appearance and durability specs for the Class A surfaces. The parts are molded by Plastech Engineered Products (www.plastecheng.com) in a plant in Bryan, OH. As there is still a percentage of the buses that aren’t yellow, these are molded with a nylon-polyphenylene oxide blend, then painted. The main difference between molding the parts is that the two-cavity tools used are polished so the molded-in color components have the required gloss.