Crown Coach Corporation

Crown Coach Corporation
IndustryTransportation
FoundedLos Angeles, California (1904 (1904))
FounderDon Brockway
DefunctMarch 1991 (March 1991)
FateDissolved
Headquarters
Los Angeles, California (1904–1985)
Chino, California (1985–1991)
Area served
West Coast, United States
ProductsSchool Buses
Fire Apparatus
Number of employees
270 (1991)
ParentGE 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]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Theobald was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  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)