The Shyft Group

American automobile design company

The Shyft Group , formerly known as Spartan Motors, is an American automobile design company that designs, engineers and manufactures specialty chassis, specialty vehicles, truck bodies and aftermarket parts for the recreational vehicle (RV), government services, and delivery and service markets. The company started in 1975 as a direct result of the bankruptcy of Diamond Reo. It is currently headquartered in Novi, Michigan The Form Rite Corporation of Charlotte, Michigan was owed a significant sum by Diamond Reo, which had been Form Rite's largest client; Form Rite had supplied fiberglass parts to Reo. During the bankruptcy hearings, Form Rite president Charles R. McManamey learned of a significant contract that Reo had just won for custom fire truck chassis. From connections made through the hearing, McManamey was able to draw together the additional talent and knowledge required to build such trucks, and founded Spartan Motors, Inc. as a wholly owned subsidiary of Form Rite. During the establishment of Spartan Motors, manufacturing was set up in Form Rite's warehouse at 426 Sumpter Rd. in Charlotte. Charles McManamey was named Spartan Motors' chairman of the board. In June 2020, Spartan Motors, Inc. announced its corporate name change to The Shyft Group, Inc. following the divestiture of its Emergency Response (ER) business unit. It began trading on NASDAQ under the symbol "SHYF". In October 2020, Shyft Group acquired the aluminum truck body manufacturer F3 MFG Inc. based in Waterville, Maine, with its brands DuraMag and Magnum.

Spartan RV Chassis engineers, designs, manufactures, sells, and services Class A diesel RV chassis for OEMs such as Entegra Coach, Newmar, Foretravel, and Jayco.

Utilimaster was acquired in November 2009. It designs, manufacturers, and assembles purpose built delivery and other vocational trucks.

Strobes R Us was acquired on December 17, 2018. It is a distributor and installer of specialty vehicle upfits and lighting equipment.

General Truck Body was acquired in June 2019 and merged with Utilimaster. It manufactures and assembles refrigerated and non refrigerated truck bodies.

Royal Truck Body was acquired on September 20, 2019. It manufactures van bodies and accessories.

On October 1, 2020, Shyft acquired F3 MFG, an aluminum truck body and accessory manufacturer behind the DuraMag Body and Magnum Truck Rack brands. The F3 MFG name was phased out and the DuraMag and Magnum brands were nested under the Shyft Specialty Vehicles business unit.

Shyft launched Blue Arc EV Solutions in March 2022 to build commercial battery electric delivery vans. The Randy Marion Automotive Group placed a pre order for the vans that September, at about the same time the first prototypes were shown to the press; they are offered in lengths of and multiple gross vehicle weight ratings, ranging from Class 3 to 5.

Spartan Emergency Response Vehicles (Spartan ERV) is a manufacturer of custom fire engines. After several years of supplying chassis for fire trucks, Spartan acquired fire apparatus body manufacturers Luverne and Quality Manufacturing in the mid 1990s. Luverne used its early expertise in the automotive and heavy truck industries to begin building fire apparatus in 1912. Quality got its start six decades later, catering to the Southern firefighting market. In 2003, Luverne and Quality were consolidated under the names Crimson Fire and Crimson Fire Aerials. In 2011, Classic Fire of Ocala, Florida was acquired and became a new Crimson Fire manufacturing facility for fire trucks. In 2012, Spartan Motors rebranded Crimson Fire as Spartan ERV, a joint venture with Gimaex. On February 3, 2020, Spartan Motors sold Spartan ERV division to the REV Group, including Spartan Custom Cabs, Smeal Fire Apparatus, Ladder Tower Company, and US Tanker.

Road Rescue is a manufacturer of ambulances. It was sold in 2010 to Allied Specialty Vehicles.

Carpenter Industries was a manufacturer of school buses, transit buses, and step vans. Carpenter was founded in 1919; Spartan purchased it in 1998, but closed it down in 2001.