Bus & Coach Album 2 (Auto Review Album Number 173)

A bus or coach is usually referred to as a Bedford, a Dennis, an AEC or whatever, but in most cases only a badge, or perhaps a radiator grille, identifies it externally in that way; that is the chassis and/or engine manufacturer. The largest part of what you see is the bodywork, and that has usually been made by another firm. Experts can (mostly) tell at a glance who made the body, but to others it is a mystery. The two Auto Review Bus & Coach Albums look at PSVs (now called PCVs) from the point of view of the coachbuilder. Auto Review 165 covers coachbuilding companies based in England. This volume describes firms based in Scotland, Ireland (north and south, because some companies predate partition) and Wales, plus some bus and coach operators who built their own bodies, chassis or complete buses.

Also described here are buses built by the railway companies (mainly pre-grouping) and a small selection of the many firms which converted van bodies or commercial vehicle chassis to produce minibuses and midibuses. There have been many dozens, probably hundreds, of such companies, so we do not claim that this is a complete survey of all such coachbuilders. We have, however, tried to include the more important or more interesting firms.

paperback, 30 pages, published in 2021, by Rob Ward