Coachbuilder

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

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 railway carriage. The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs.^[1]

Coachbuilt body is the British English name for the coachbuilder's product. Custom body is the standard term in North American English.

"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.

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

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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.^[2]

Automobiles[]

From the beginning of the automobile industry manufacturers offered complete cars assembled in their own factories commonly using entire bodies made by specialist people using different skills. Soon after the start of the twentieth century mass production coachbuilders developed such as Fisher Body or Mulliners or Pressed Steel or Budd or Briggs in the U. S. or England or Ambi-Budd in Germany. Many other big businesses remain involved.

Swallow body on an Austin Seven chassis by Swallow Coachbuilding Company which became Jaguar Cars

Specialist market sector[]

There remained a market for bodies to fit low production cars, short-run and luxury cars. Custom or bespoke bodies were made and fitted to another manufacturer's rolling chassis by the craftsmen who had previously built bodies for horse-drawn carriages. Bespoke bodies are made of hand-shaped sheet metal, often aluminum alloy. Pressed or hand-shaped the metal panels were fastened to a wooden frame of particularly light but strong types of wood. Later 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 some Pierce-Arrow cars^[3] contained little or no timber though they were mounted on a conventional steel chassis.

Bugatti Type 57 rolling chassis

The car manufacturer would offer for sale 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 (vulnerable and so made of pressed steel for strength and easy repair) and (later) bumpers, scuttle (firewall) and dashboard. The very easily damaged honeycomb radiator, later enclosed and protected by a shell or even reduced to an air intake, was or held the visual element identifying the chassis' brand. To let car manufacturers maintain some level of control over the final product their warranties could be voided if coachbuilders fitted unapproved bodies.

As well as 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.

Obsolescence[]

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 road-holding and much improved the ride experienced by passengers.

Ultra-luxury vehicles[]

1920 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8 was only available from the manufacturer as a rolling chassis

Hooper 7-seater touring limousine for HRH The Prince Regent of Iraq (1953). Rolls-Royce built only 18 Phantom IV chassis for bodies by independent coachbuilders

Larger car dealers or distributors would commonly preorder stock chassis and the bodies they thought most likely to sell and order them for sale off their showroom floor.

All luxury vehicles during the automobile's Golden Era before World War II were available as chassis only. For example, 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 their designs on the Type 135. For the Delahaye, most were bodied by Chapron, Labourdette, Franay, Saoutchik, Figoni et Falaschi, or Pennock.^{[citation needed]}

The practice continued after World War II waning dramatically in the 1950s and 1960s. Rolls-Royce debuted its first unibody model, their Silver Shadow, in 1965.

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)

Gallery[]

• 

  Pourtout drophead coupé on a Lancia Belna chassis 1935

• 

  Touring 2-seater body on a 1938 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300B chassis

• 

  Fixed head coupé by Ghia 1954 on an Alfa Romeo 1900 SS chassis

• 

  Hebmüller Cabriolet modifications upon a mass-produced Volkswagen platform chassis

List of coachbuilders[]

Austria[]

Belgium[]

Denmark[]

France[]

Germany[]

Italy[]

Japan[]

• Mitsuoka

Spain[]

Sweden[]

Switzerland[]

The Netherlands[]

United Kingdom[]

United States[]

Survivors of the unibody production-line system[]

See also[]

• Bus manufacturing
• Chassis
• Unibody
• Wainwright

Notes[]

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Coachbuilders.

• Coachbuild.com: Encyclopedia of worldwide Coachbuilders from past to present
• Encyclopedia of American Coachbuilders
• Goldarths: The Fine Art of Coachbuilding
• The Kellner Affair: Matters of Life and Death by Peter M. Larsen and Ben Erickson. Details Jacques Kellner and George Paulin involvement in the French Resistance.