Coachbuilder

A coachbuilder, or body-maker, manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.[note 1] Coachwork is the body of an automobile, bus, horse-drawn carriage, or railroad passenger car (known formally as a railway carriage). The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs.[1]

Not to be confused with custom car, or customized car, for example CadZZilla.
Ash body frame ready to be clad in metal mounted on a Morgan 4/4 chassis
The coachbuilder's wooden frame fixed to its replica Bentley chassis

The chassis would have with it all lights, standard instruments and their panel, engine cover, mudguards and running boards and spare wheel(s)

Original 1930 Bentley Speed Six Gurney Nutting coupé
Bugatti Type 57 rolling chassis

Custom or bespoke coachbuilt bodies were made and fitted to another manufacturer's rolling chassis by the craftsmen who had previously built bodies for horse-drawn carriages and coaches. Separate coachbuilt bodies became obsolete when vehicle manufacturers found they could no longer meet their customers' demands by relying on a simple separate chassis (on which a custom or bespoke body could be built) mounted on leaf springs on beam axles. Unibody or monocoque combined chassis and body structures became standardised during the middle years of the 20th century to provide the rigidity required by improved suspension systems without incurring the heavy weight, and consequent fuel, penalty of a truly rigid separate chassis. The improved more supple suspension systems gave vehicles better roadholding and much improved the ride experienced by passengers.

As well as true bespoke bodies the same coachbuilders also made short runs of more-or-less identical bodies to the order of dealers or the manufacturer of a chassis. The same body design might then be adjusted to suit different brands of chassis. Examples include Salmons & Sons' Tickford bodies with a patent device to raise or lower a convertible's roof, first used on their 19th century carriages, or Wingham convertible bodies by Martin Walter.

Coachbuilt body is the British English name for the coachbuilder's product. Custom body is the standard term in North American English. Coachbuilders are: carrossiers in French, carrozzeria in Italian, Karosseriebauer in German and carroceros in Spanish. "Coachbuilt body" is also the British English name for mass-produced vehicles built on assembly lines using the same but simplified techniques until more durable all-steel bodies replaced them in the early 1950s.

Unless they were for mass-produced vehicles, justifying the cost of tooling up dies and presses, coachbuilt bodies were made of hand-shaped sheet metal, usually aluminum alloy. Pressed or hand-shaped the metal panels were fastened to a wooden frame of particularly light but strong timber. Many of the more important structural features of the bespoke or custom body such as A, B and C pillars were cast alloy components. Some bodies such as those entirely alloy bodies fitted to many Pierce-Arrow cars[2] contained little or no timber though they were mounted on a conventional steel chassis.

The coachbuilder craftsmen who might once have built bespoke or custom bodies continue to build bodies for short runs of specialized commercial vehicles such as luxury motor coaches or recreational vehicles or motor-home bodied upon a rolling chassis provided by an independent manufacturer. A conversion is built inside an existing vehicle body.

Horse-drawn origins
Portugal 18th century

A British trade association the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers was incorporated in 1690. Some British coachmaking firms operating in the 20th century were established even earlier. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards. Brewster, the oldest in the U.S., was formed in 1810.[3]

Early production
Austin Seven Swallow by Swallow Coachbuilding Company (later Jaguar Cars)

The maker would provide the coachworks with a chassis frame, drivetrain (consisting of an engine, gearbox, differential, axles, and wheels), brakes, suspension, steering system, lighting system, spare wheel(s), front and rear mudguards and (later) bumpers, scuttle (firewall) and dashboard. The very easily damaged honeycomb radiator, later enclosed and protected by a shell, typically became the main visual element identifying the chassis' brand. To maintain some level of control over the final product, chassis manufacturers' warranties would be voided by mating them with unapproved bodies.




Ultra-luxury vehicles
1920 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8 was only available from the manufacturer as a rolling chassis
Rolls-Royce, Ltd. built only 18 Phantom IV chassis, all bodied by independent coachbuilders. Pictured is the Hooper 7-seater touring limousine for HRH The Prince Regent of Iraq (1953)

When popular automobile manufacturers brought body building in-house, larger dealers or distributors of ultra-luxury cars would commonly preorder stock chassis and the bodies they thought most likely to sell and inventory them in suitable quantities for sale off their showroom floor. In time, the practice of commissioning bespoke coachwork dwindled to a prerogative of wealth.

All ultra-luxury vehicles of automobiling's Golden Era before World War II sold as chassis only. For instance, when Duesenberg introduced their Model J, it was offered as chassis only, for $8,500. Other examples include the Bugatti Type 57, Cadillac V-16, Packard Twelve, Ferrari 250, Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8, Hispano-Suiza J12 and all Rolls-Royces produced before World War II. Delahaye had no in-house coachworks, so all its chassis were bodied by independents, who created some of their most attractive designs on the Type 135. Most of the Delahayes were bodied by Chapron, Labourdette, Franay, Saoutchik, Figoni et Falaschi, or Pennock.

The practice remained in limited force after World War II, with both luxury chassis and high-performance sports cars and gran turismos, waning dramatically by the late 1960s. Even Rolls-Royce acquiesced, debuting its first unibody model, the Silver Shadow, in 1965, before taking all R-R and Bentley bodying in-house.

Unibody construction
Decapotable (convertible) by Henri Chapron on a Citroen DS chassis 1967

Independent coachbuilders survived for a time after the mid-20th century, making bodies for the chassis produced by low-production companies such as Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, and Bentley.[4] Producing body dies is extremely expensive (a single door die can run to US$40,000), which is usually only considered practical when large numbers are involved—though that was the path taken by Rolls-Royce and Bentley after 1945 for their own in-house production. Because dies for pressing metal panels are so costly, from the mid 20th century, many vehicles, most notably the Chevrolet Corvette, were clothed with large panels of fiberglass-reinforced resin, which only require inexpensive molds. Glass has since been replaced by more sophisticated materials, if necessary hand-formed. Generally these replace metal only where weight is of paramount importance.

The advent of unibody construction, where the car body is unified with and structurally integral to the chassis, made custom coachbuilding uneconomic. Many coachbuilders closed down, were bought by manufacturers or changed their core business to other activities:

  • Transforming into dedicated design or styling houses, subcontracting to automotive brands (e.g. Zagato, Frua, Bertone, Pininfarina)
  • Transforming into general coachwork series manufacturers, subcontracting to automotive brands (e.g. Karmann, Bertone, Vignale, Pininfarina)
  • Manufacturing runs of special coachworks for trucks, delivery vans, touring cars, ambulances, fire engines, public transport vehicles, etc. (e.g., Pennock, Van Hool, Plaxton, Heuliez)
  • Becoming technical partners for the development of roof constructions (e.g., Karmann, Heuliez), for example, or producers of various (aftermarket) automotive parts (e.g., Giannini)

List of coachbuilders

Austria
  • Ambruster
  • Keibl

Belgium

France

Germany

Italy

Japan


Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

The Netherlands

United Kingdom

United States

Survivors of the unibody production-line system

See also

Notes
  1. Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily fragile, but satisfactory wheels by a separate trade, a wheelwright, held together by iron or steel tyres, was always most critical.
    From about AD 1000 rough vehicle construction was carried out by a wainwright, a wagon-builder. Later names include cartwright (a carpenter who makes carts, from 1587); coachwright; and coachmaker (from 1599). Subtrades include wheelwright, coachjoiner, etc. The word coachbuilder first appeared in 1794. Oxford English Dictionary 2011

Citations
  1. Coach. Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1933.
  2. Early Pierce-Arrow cast aluminum body technology. The Pierce-Arrow Society accessed February 25, 2019
  3. G.N. Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1990), p.206
  4. "Steel Bodies: In an Eggshell", in Ward, Ian, executive editor. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis Publishing, 1974), p. 2178.
  5. Coway web site Archived 2012-04-24 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Jankel web site Archived 2012-04-05 at the Wayback Machine
  7. "Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles, Mobility Cars, Disability Car, Adapted Vehicles for Sale". jubileemobility.co.uk.
  8. "Specialist Vehicle Converter & Supplier - MacNeillie". MacNeillie.
  9. "Hearse for Sale - Limousine for Sale - Wilcox Limousines". Wilcox Limousines.
  10. "Woodall Nicholson". woodall-nicholson.co.uk.
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