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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 (1904–1984) Chino, California (1984–1991)
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.

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; at the time, the company was struggling against declining demand for school buses.

History

1904–1920: Wagons to school buses

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

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. After World War I, Crown built its first body for school bus use.

1921–1949: Airplanes, metal bodies, and Supercoaches

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. 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.

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). In 1930, it produced its first all-metal school bus body, with a 43-passenger capacity (on a Mack chassis).

In 1927, the company changed its name, becoming the Crown Motor Carriage Company. In 1929, the Aircraft Division (founded in 1925) licensed the Kinner Airster airframe and it was manufactured as the Crown B-3 between 1930 and 1933.

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. To improve safety, the bus was designed with an integral chassis; the windows were mesh-reinforced safety glass. Alongside the standard braking system, the bus also was equipped with two backup braking systems.

In 1933, Crown changed its name to Crown Body and Coach Corporation, with the Brockway family reacquiring complete control of the company three years later.

After it was dubbed the Crown Supercoach in 1935, the Crown cab-forward bus underwent a series of changes during the late 1930s. The new design introduced an all-steel body, air brakes, and an integrated body and chassis. To increase seating capacity to 79 passenger, Crown introduced a mid-engine Supercoach, using a horizontally-mounted Hall-Scott gasoline engine. To supplement school bus production, Crown produced intercity motorcoaches (among the first air conditioned designs) and custom-built delivery vans.

In 1939, Crown acquired Moreland Motor Truck Company, relocating to its Los Angeles factory (where it remained until the 1980s); the company was renamed Crown Coach Corporation. A previous chassis supplier to Crown, the Moreland facility led to several changes, including the adoption of a rear-engine configuration for 1940, along with a rear exit window and a side emergency exit door.

During World War II, the company saw few contracts for war production, receiving only a few requests to produce fire engine bodies for four-wheel drive truck chassis. Following the war, the company returned to bus production, beginning design work on an all-new Supercoach for 1948. As a side project, engineers at the company designed an all-new cabover fire engine, using the mid-engine chassis of the Supercoach bus. In 1951, the first Crown Firecoach prototype was completed after two years of design work. 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.

1950–1980: Mid-engine school buses

During the mid-1950s, Crown made several changes to the Supercoach. In 1954, the company introduced the first diesel-engined school bus when it introduced the horizontally-mounted Cummins NHH inline-6 as an option. In 1955, Crown developed the largest school bus in the United States. By lengthening the bodyshell to 40 feet (then the maximum for 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). Along with its Gillig counterpart, the 97-passenger Crown 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 holding 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. In place of developing such a design 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.

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. In 1969, Crown supplemented sales of the Supercoach by becoming one of the first distributors of Quebec-assembled Prevost Car motorcoaches in the United States.

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. In 1965, a roof was made standard for all Firecoaches, in the interest of firefighter safety.

1980–1991: Decline

In 1979, the Brockway family sold Crown Coach Corporation to a local truck distributor; this began a sequence of ownership changes. Due to slow sales, Crown ended production of the motorcoach version of the Supercoach in 1980, focusing entirely on school buses. The same year, the company was renamed Crown Coach International.

To diversify production beyond its Supercoach school buses, Crown entered into a joint venture with the Hungarian firm Ikarus in 1980 to market its first mass-transit bus. The longest and widest bus ever produced by the company, the articulated Crown-Ikarus 286 is 102 inches wide and 60 feet long. Under the joint venture, though the bodies were assembled by Ikarus in Hungary and imported to California, to meet "Buy America" requirements, the vehicles underwent final assembly by Crown Coach, including the entire interior and the fitment of the American-sourced powertrain (sourced from the Supercoach). In 1986, the partnership ended, with 243 examples produced.

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.

Early in the 1980s, Crown also began to lose its distributorship sales. In 1983, its Prevost agreement ended, with competitors Wayne, Blue Bird, and Thomas establishing their own West Coast sales networks by the same time; the latter two manufacturers also marketed the competitive All American and Saf-T-Liner buses across the United States.

During 1984, Crown moved its headquarters and production from Los Angeles to Chino, California in San Bernardino County; though intended to increase production, demand for new Supercoaches did not meet the capability. 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. In April 1987, the company was purchased at auction by GE Railcar. After a reorganization as Crown Coach, Incorporated, production in Chino restarted in July 1987.

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.

After operating Crown since 1987, GE Railcar continued to find the business unprofitable; by 1990, Crown was already for sale. After an unsuccessful attempt by GE to find a buyer, Crown Coach announced its closure March 31, 1991 in October 1990; the key reason behind the closure cited was Crown's difficulty competing with lower-capacity buses produced at a lower price.

In May 1991, the assets of Crown Coach would be purchased by Carpenter Body Works; this included tooling and intellectual property of the company. At the time, Carpenter had wanted to restart production of the Crown Supercoach II in its Indiana facilty, but it deemed the unibody design of the Supercoach too complex and expensive for large-scale production. In 1992, Carpenter introduced a Carpenter RE school bus, including the headlight design and several interior components of the Supercoach II. From 1996 to 1999, Carpenter branded itself as Crown by Carpenter, using a brand emblem introduced by Crown Coach shortly before its closure.

Products

Buses

Fire apparatus

Other vehicles

References

1. ^ "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, - Coachbult.com". www.coachbuilt.com. Retrieved 2024-12-14.
2. ^ 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. ^ J. H. Velentine. "Crown Coach: California's Speciality Builder". Tripod. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
4. ^ "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

• Media related to Crown Coach Corporation vehicles at Wikimedia Commons

• Crown Coach Historical Society - founded by Sandi Brockway
• Bruce Vanderhorst Crown Fire Engine Website
• Paul Krot's Crown Firecoach Photo Archive
• Chris Arnolds Crown Firecoach Website

• Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1904
• Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1991
• School bus manufacturers
• Defunct bus manufacturers of the United States
• Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles
• Manufacturing companies based in Los Angeles
• Fire service vehicle manufacturers