Crown Coach Corporation

American bus manufacturer (1904-1991)

This article is about the defunct vehicle manufacturer that specialized in buses. For the American forklift manufacturer, see Crown Equipment Corporation.

Crown Coach Corporation

1978 Crown Supercoach school bus, Model 2A-426-11

Industry| Transportation
Founded| Los Angeles, California (1904 (1904))
Founder| Don Brockway
Defunct| March 1991 (March 1991)
Fate| Dissolved
Headquarters|

Los Angeles, California (1904-1985)
Chino, California (1985-1991)

Area served

| West Coast, United States
Products| School Buses
Fire Apparatus

Number of employees

| 270 (1991)
Parent| GE Railcar (1987-1991)

The Crown Coach Corporation (founded as the Crown Carriage Company) is a defunct American bus manufacturer. Founded in 1904, the company was best known for its Supercoach range of yellow school buses and motorcoaches; the former vehicles were marketed throughout the West Coast of the United States. Competing alongside Gillig Corporation and similar its Gillig Transit Coach, the two companies supplied California with school buses nearly exclusively into the 1980s.

Crown also was the manufacturer of custom-built vehicles derived from its buses, including the Firecoach line of fire apparatus.[1][2]

For 80 years, Crown was headquartered in Los Angeles, California; in 1984, the company relocated its headquarters and manufacturing to Chino, California, where it operated until its closure. In March 1991, Crown Coach (then a subsidiary of GE Railcar) ended operations as a result of declining demand for school buses at the time.[3][4]

## History

[edit]

### 1904-1920: Wagons to school buses

[edit]

At the beginning of the 20th century, Don M. Brockway found himself working at the first hardware store in Los Angeles, California.[2] To supplement its income, the hardware store sold parts for wagons and carriages.[1] In 1904, Brockway founded his own company, as Crown Carriage Company began life producing horse-drawn carriages. While the first vehicles were built in a wooden shed, the company moved to a brick factory in 1910.[2]

After 1910, as carriages gradually became "horseless", Crown experimented with building truck bodies. In 1916, the company built its first bus body for transit use; it was an open-air design heavily influenced by wagon design.[2] After World War I, Crown built its first body for school bus use.[1][2]

### 1921-1949: Airplanes, metal bodies, and Supercoaches

[edit]

In 1921, a major shift in company production occurred as Murillo M. ("Brock") Brockway, the son of the company founder, was put in charge of school bus production.[2] Viewing school buses as a growth market in the suburbs of southern California, Brockway discontinued all wagon production in favor of bus and truck body production. To expand production and improve shipping of its vehicles, a much larger factory in Los Angeles was opened in 1923.[1]

In pursuit of developing heavier-duty and higher-capacity school buses, Crown introduced the first school bus with dual rear wheels in 1927 (on a Reo chassis).[1][2] In 1930, it produced its first all-metal school bus body (on a Mack chassis), with a 43-passenger capacity.[1][2]

In 1929, Aircraft Division of the Crown Carriage Co. licensed the Kinner Airster airframe and it was manufactured as the Crown B-3 between 1930 and 1933.[5][2]

1932 would mark several major changes for the company. As part of his taking over day-to-day operations of Crown from his father, MM Brockway introduced a ground-breaking school bus body; elements of its design would change school bus design forever. To improve forward visibility, the new bus was a cab-forward design, with the driver sitting next to the engine and radiator.[2] To improve safety, the bus was designed with an integral chassis; the windows were mesh-reinforced safety glass.[2] Alongside the standard braking system, the bus also was equipped with two backup braking systems.[1]

In 1935, the cab-forward school bus was updated and dubbed the Crown Supercoach.

For 1937, to increase seating capacity to 79 passengers, Crown produced its first mid-engine Supercoach; the bus came with a Hall-Scott gasoline engine.[2] In 1939, Crown acquired Moreland Motor Truck Company; as part of the acquisition, Crown moved to a larger factory in Los Angeles.[1] Additionally, the Supercoach was changed from a mid-engine to a rear-engine configuration for 1940.[2]

During World War II, the production of Crown Coach was diverted towards military use; most bodies produced by the company were fire engine bodies for four-wheel drive truck chassis.[6] Following the war, the company returned to bus production, beginning design work on the 1948 Supercoach. As a side project, engineers at the company designed an all-new cabover fire engine, using the mid-engine chassis of the Supercoach bus.[2] The first Crown Firecoach prototype was completed in 1951, after two years of design work.[2] Alongside the initial pumper design, Crown developed several configurations of the Firecoach, including water tenders, tiller and ladder trucks, and quints (TeleSquirts).

In the United States during the years immediately following World War II, population growth of suburbs expanded, fueled by the post-war baby boom. As that segment of the population entered school, demand for new schools (and school buses to transport their students) rapidly rose. In 1946, Crown began development on a new mid-engine Supercoach. Heavily influenced by motorcoach design, Crown intended it primarily for school bus use. Introduced in 1949, the all-new Supercoach used unit-body construction with high-strength steel in place of a separate chassis; to combat corrosion, all body panels were aluminum.

To prove the durability of the Supercoach to potential customers, Crown offered the Supercoach with a 20-year/100,000 mile warranty for the body.[1]

### 1950-1980: Mid-engine school buses

[edit]

Main article: Crown Supercoach

During the mid-1950s, Crown made several changes to the Supercoach. In 1954, the company made the Cummins NHH available as an option, producing the first diesel-engined school bus. In 1955, Crown developed the largest school bus in the United States.[2] In expanding the bodyshell to 40 feet (then the maximum for both school buses and motorcoaches) and adding a second rear axle, Crown raised the seating capacity from 79 to 91 passengers. As a later option, some school districts ordered the Supercoach with a 16th row of seats, further expanding seating to 97 passengers; as with its Gillig counterpart, the 97-passenger Supercoach is the highest-capacity school bus ever sold in the United States.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, school bus production on the West Coast evolved separately from the rest of the United States, with the Crown Supercoach and the similar Gillig Transit Coach having a near-monopoly of the school bus segment in California and a large share of the rest of the West Coast. Outside of the region, many operators continued use of lower-capacity conventional-type buses based upon truck chassis. For users seeking lower-capacity buses on the West Coast, in place of developing an all-new model line from the ground up, both Crown and Gillig chose to serve as the West Coast distributor for other manufacturers. At various times, Crown would market Wayne, Blue Bird, and Thomas Built Buses in California.[1][2]

Sharing much of its underlying structure with the Crown school bus, the intercity Crown Supercoach was marketed with several configurations. Along with an underfloor configuration, Crown also produced a rear-engine version, as well as a raised-floor configuration (along with a version similar to the Scenicruiser); the latter two provided for increased luggage space.[3] To supplement its motorcoach offerings, in 1969, Crown became one of the first distributors of Quebec-built Prevost motorcoaches in the United States.[1][2]

The Firecoach was produced through the 1960s and 1970s with relatively few changes. While sold primarily across the West Coast, examples of the Crown Firecoach were purchased by fire departments across the United States.[2] In 1965, a roof was made standard for all Firecoaches, in the interest of firefighter safety.

### 1980-1991: Decline

[edit]

In 1979, the Brockway family sold Crown Coach Corporation to a local truck distributor; this began a sequence of ownership changes.[1] Due to slow sales, Crown ended production of the motorcoach version of the Supercoach in 1980, focusing entirely on school buses.[3] By 1982, sales of the aging Firecoach had largely collapsed, leading to a temporary hiatus in its production. After 34 years of production and with slightly over 1,800 examples produced, the final Firecoach was produced in 1985.[1][2]

During 1984, Crown moved its headquarters and production from Los Angeles to Chino, California in San Bernardino County. To diversify beyond the Supercoach-based product line, Crown entered into a joint venture with the Hungarian firm Ikarus to produce articulated mass-transit buses.[1] At 102 inches wide and 60 feet long, the Crown-Ikarus 286 was the longest and widest bus ever produced by Crown Coach. Bodied by Ikarus in Hungary, the transit bus was imported to Crown in California for final assembly, including its interior and American-sourced powertrain (shared with the Supercoach). In 1986, the partnership ended, with 243 examples produced.[1]

At the end of 1986, Crown Coach entered into receivership; in addition to the closure of production, the Los Angeles factory (which it had owned since 1939) was sold.[3] In April 1987, the company was purchased at auction by GE Railcar.[1][3] After a reorganization as Crown Coach, Incorporated, production in Chino restarted in July 1987.[1][3]

As the 1980s ended, the Crown Supercoach had reached over 40 years of production with only minor evolutionary changes made through its production. In 1989, the California Energy Commission began a study to test low-emission school buses, using methanol-fueled vehicles as part of the test; Crown Coach was a manufacturer selected to take part of the study, using a methanol-fuel Detroit Diesel 6V92 engine. The fitment of the engine required an extensive update of the rear bodywork of the Supercoach, leading to a matching update of the front bodywork. Although not a completely new design, the Series II, as it was named, was the first major update to the Supercoach since 1948.

GE railcar would find the business unprofitable and would seek a buyer. After an unsuccessful attempt at finding a buyer in 1990, Crown Coach would be shut down on March 31, 1991.[3][7] Crown's difficulty in competing with manufacturers of smaller, less durable but cheaper school buses was cited by company president Bruce Freeman in October 1990 as a primary factor in GE's decision to leave the school bus market.[4] The assets of Crown Coach would be purchased by Carpenter Body Works in May 1991. This included tooling and intellectual property of the defunct company. Carpenter hoped to restart production of the Crown Supercoach II, but deemed the unibody construction too expensive for mass production. Carpenter would introduce the Carpenter RE, a similar coach to the Crown Supercoach in 1992.[8]

## Products

[edit]

1980s Crown Supercoach motorcoach 1977-1991 36' Crown Supercoach 1982 Crown-Ikarus 286 articulated bus Crown Supercoach II

### Buses

[edit]

Main articles: Crown Supercoach and Crown-Ikarus 286

Crown Coach buses

Vehicle  | Production Dates  | Chassis  | Notes
Crown School Buses[1][2] | c. 1919-1932  | Various (including Mack, Reo, Ford)  | Crown built the first dual-rear wheel school bus (1927)

Crown built its first all-metal school bus body in 1930.

Crown Metro/Metropolitan[1] | 1935-c.1937  | Ford  | Ford conventional-chassis bus
Crown Super Coach[1] | 1932-1947 (exc.WWII)  | Various  | First factory-produced forward control-school bus (1932)

Mid-engine version (1937)

Rear-engine version (1939)

Produced as school bus and motorcoach

Crown Supercoach

Crown Supercoach Series II

Motorcoach/Tourcoach

Crown Coach Highway/Intercity coaches

| 1948-1991  | Crown Coach integral  | Aluminum-body integral chassis bus, Midship and rear engine configurations

Produced as both school bus and motorcoach

First diesel-powered school bus (1955)

First tandem-axle school bus (1956)

Non-Crown Coach buses
Ford Transit Bus | c.1945-1947  | Ford rear-engine  | Crown sold the Ford Transit Bus after World War II.
Ward/Ford Coachette  | 1961-1962  | Ford P-van  | The Coachette (bodied by Ward) was marketed by Crown from 1961-1962.
Crown-Ikarus 286 | 1980-1986  | Ikarus 280 modified  | The Crown-Ikarus 286 articulated transit bus was a joint venture between Crown Coach and Hungarian bus manufacturer Ikarus.
Other  | 1960s-1970s  | See notes  | Crown served as the first United States distributor of Prevost motorcoaches, from 1969 to 1983.[1] During the 1960s and 1970s, Crown served as the West Coast distributor of several school bus manufacturers, including Wayne Works, Blue Bird Body Company, and Thomas Built Buses.[2]

### Fire apparatus

[edit]

Main article: Crown Firecoach

Retired Crown Firecoach Crown Coach Fire Apparatus

Vehicle  | Production Dates  | Chassis  | Notes
Crown Firecoach | 1951-1982

1984-1985

| Crown Coach  | The mid-engine Crown Firecoach is derived from the underpinnings of the Crown Supercoach bus, using heavier-duty engines and powertrains.

First produced as a fire engine, the Firecoach was also produced as water tenders, tiller and ladder trucks, and quints (TeleSquirts).

Produced as open-air cabs, enclosed cabs (standard after 1965), and wide-cab (standard after 1979).

Various apparatus  | 1951-1985  | Customer-provided chassis  | Alongside the purpose-built Firecoach, Crown Coach also produced bodies on customer chassis to request.

### Other vehicles

[edit]

Other Crown Coach vehicles

Vehicle  | Production Dates  | Chassis  | Notes
Crown truck cabs/bodies[1] | 1916-1918  | Federal |
Crown B-3  | 1925-1933  | N/A (see notes)  | License-built version of Kinner Airster biplane[1][2]
Mobile Command Unit

Crown Coach HPO

Bookmobile

| 1950s-c.1980  | Crown Supercoach  | Crown Supercoach with an enlarged body behind driver compartment, including raised roof and vertical sides.
Security Coaches  | 1950s-?  | Crown Supercoach  | Prisoner transport vehicle based on Crown Supercoach school bus

35-foot and 40-foot chassis; 42-64 passenger capacity

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Mark Theobald (2004). "Crown Coach". Coachbuilt.com. Retrieved 2010-04-29
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Hass, Ed. "The Dentist Who Built Buses and Fire Engines by Ed Hass". Archived from the original on 11 October 2010. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
3. ^ a b c d e f g J. H. Velentine. "Crown Coach: California's Speciality Builder". Tripod. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
4. ^ a b "Crown Coach Historical Society | Blog | School Bus Maker Crown Coach to Close Next March". 2010-10-11. Archived from the original on 2010-10-11. Retrieved 2017-11-15.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
5. ^ Theobald, Mark (2004). "Crown Coach, Crown Body & Coach Corp., Crown Carriage Co., Crown Motor Carriage Co., Crown Coach International, Crown Coach Inc., Crown Coach by Carpenter, Crown-Ikarus, Crown Aircraft,". CoachBuilt. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
6. ^ "techtimeline". www.crownisking.org. Archived from the original on 2016-08-15. Retrieved 2016-06-25.
7. ^ "Crown Coach Corporation (1932-1991) : Crown Coach Historical Society". Retrieved 2022-04-10.
8. ^ "Carpenter Schools Buses, Ralph H. Carpenter Body Co., Carpenter Body Works, Carpenter Mfg. Co., Mitchell Indiana, Richmond Indiana, North Vernon, Seymour, Carpenter Industries, Inc. div of Spartan Industries,Crown By Carpenter - CoachBuilt.com". www.coachbuilt.com. Retrieved 2022-04-10.

## External links

[edit]

* Media related to Crown Coach Corporation vehicles at Wikimedia Commons

* Buses portal

* Crown Coach Historical Society \- founded by Sandi Brockway
* [1] Bruce Vanderhorst Crown Fire Engine Website
* [2] Paul Krot's Crown Firecoach Photo Archive
* [3] Chris Arnolds Crown Firecoach Website

* v
* t
* e

North American bus builders

Active|

* Blue Bird
* Daimler Truck
* Setra
* Thomas
* DINA
* Environmental Performance Vehicles
* Forest River
* Champion
* Collins
* ElDorado
* Glaval
* Starcraft
* Gillig
* Girardin
* GreenPower
* IC Bus
* Lion
* NFI Group
* Motor Coach Industries
* New Flyer
* Phoenix Motorcars
* Proterra
* REV Group
* ENC
* Stallion
* Trans Tech
* Vicinity
* Volvo Buses
* Nova Bus
* Prevost

Defunct|

* ACF-Brill
* Aerocoach
* AM General
* AmTran
* Beck
* Canadian Car and Foundry
* Carpenter Body Company
* Crown Coach Corporation
* Dupont Industries
* Eagle Bus
* Fageol
* Fifth Avenue Bus Company
* FitzJohn
* Flxible
* General Motors Diesel Division (GM Coach)
* GM Truck and Coach Division
* Goshen Coach
* Kenworth
* LAG Motorcoach
* Les Enterprises Michel Corbeil
* Mack Trucks
* Marmon-Herrington
* MASA
* Millennium Transit Services
* Neoplan USA
* North American Bus Industries
* Optima Bus Corporation
* Orion International
* Pullman-Standard
* St Louis Car Company
* Superior Coach Company
* Transportation Manufacturing Corporation
* Twin Coach
* U.S. Bus Corporation
* Ward Body Works
* Wayne Corporation
* Wayne Wheeled Vehicles
* White Motor Company
* Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company

* v
* t
* e

School bus manufacturers, North America

Active manufacturers|

| Full-size and small buses|

* Blue Bird Corporation (small buses made by Girardin Minibus)
* GreenPower Motor Company
* IC Bus
* Lion Electric Company
* Thomas Built Buses, Inc

|

Small buses only|

* Collins Industries
* Girardin Minibus (renamed Micro Bird by Girardin)
* Starcraft Bus
* Trans Tech

Defunct manufacturers
(including date of closure
or last school bus manufacture)|

| 2010s|

* Corbeil Bus Corporation (2016)

|

2000s|

* Carpenter Industries, Inc (2001)
* American Transportation Corporation (AmTran) (2002; became IC Bus)
* Les Enterprises Michel Corbeil (2008; acquired by Collins)
* Liberty Bus (2005)
* Mid Bus (2008)
* U.S. Bus Corporation (2007; became Trans Tech)

1990s|

* Coach and Equipment Manufacturing (1999; still in business)
* Crown Coach Corporation (1991)
* Gillig (1993; still in business)
* Mid Bus (1998; acquired by Collins)
* TAM-USA (1991)
* Wayne Corporation (1992; became Wayne Wheeled Vehicles)
* Wayne Wheeled Vehicles (1995)

1980s|

* Ward Body Works (1980; became AmTran)
* New Bus Company (1989)
* Superior Coach Company (1985)

1970s|

* Northern Coach
* Perley A. Thomas Car Works (1972; became Thomas Built Buses)

1960s|

* Hackney Brothers Body Company (1966)

1950s|

* Kenworth-Pacific (1957; still in business)

List of school bus manufacturers

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF

National|

* United States

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