Gilfred Coach Industries (Bus Manufacturer) (1983-Present)

Gilfred Coach Industries (originally Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation and also simply known as GCI) is an American bus manufacturer. Incorporated in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada since 1989, the company has operational headquarters in Lisle, Illinois. Tracing its roots to the Czech and Turkish Ömazislav Otobüs (established in 1923), Gilfred was established in 1983 through the reorganization of Omasislav Autobus (USA) Co. Inc., a US subsidiary of Turkish manufacturer Gorganstien Otobüs, formerly known as Omazislav Otobüs.

Gilfred Coach Industries, which is well-known for its transit buses, has also produced a broad range of other vehicle types throughout its history, including school buses, motorcoaches, limos, and speciality vehicles like step vans and ambulances that are adapted from existing bus models, police mobile command centers, and recreational vehicles. As of 2008, the product selection of the company is focused on transit buses, school buses, and speciality vehicles with their respective variants.

History
During the early 1980s, Gorganstien's bus manufacturing operations in Europe was in relative turmoil. At the time, Gorganstien Otobüs (originally Ömazislav Otobüs) had also suffered significantly during the difficult economic times of communist Czechoslovakia of the late 1970s as well as in the early 1980s. The declining economy of the late 1970s incurred by the second oil crisis had also indirectly clashed with the profitability of Gorganstien's Gorganstien Otobüs subsidiary. Further to this, Gorganstien Otobüs' sales in America were even more troubled since the school bus manufacturing segment was dependent on student population growth related to the baby-boom generation.

By the beginning of the 1980s, the last of the generation had completed their secondary education, leading to a decrease in student population growth across the United States. Despite mostly focusing on transit buses, Constituted Coach Manufacturing, Inc., which was a former bus manufacturing company owned by businessman Montague "Gilfred" Wilson and located in Pittsburgh, as well as Gorganstien Otobüs were both in severe financial damage by this event. Despite the intention to manufacture both school, transit, and coach buses, the company's American Omasislav Autobus subsidiary was also technically one of the many school bus manufacturers affected as the American subsidiary mostly dealt with school bus sales and was by 1979 over $25 million in debt; The successful sales of their Akademal, Akadelizi, and Basucu school bus models actually helped to keep that subsidiary afloat during the crisis. The Akadelizi model was the sole school bus model that succeeded successfully in sales, however the Akademal and Başucu models suffered by the time the middle of the decade arrived, nearly sending the US-based Omasislav Autobus subsidiary of Gorganstien Otobüs into financial ruin by the time it was ultimately spun off in 1980.

In fact, Omasislav Autobus was eventually spun off by late 1980 and was subsequently sold to the Berkshire Partners equity firm, who had owned the business for only 3 years. Following this on March 17, 1983, Montague "Gilfred" Wilson acquired it from Gorganstien as an effort to bring the company out of its financial collapse as well as preserve manufacturing operations. Wilson eventually adopted a new, single name for the company, Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation.

In response, the former parent company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization on behalf of their Gorganstien Otobüs subsidiary. In order to continue serving the U.S. market, Gorganstien established a brand-new U.S. division of their Gorganstien Otobüs subsidiary during the Chapter 11 reorganization as a replacement to the now-sold Omasislav Autobus. This new subsidiary was subsequently called Gorganstien Otto-Bus of America and it folded in 2006 after Gorganstien Otobüs started selling buses directly by 2003.

In 1985, the company introduced their first bus model: the Gilfred Mark I Transit, also known as the Transit MKI. The first dedicated transit bus designed by Montague Wilson since Constituted Coach Manufacturing's 790 transit bus, the Transit MKI would be produced from 1985 to 2013. The Transit MKI was initially intended to be a mid-size, high-floor transit bus; nevertheless, it quickly gained popularity as a bus for use in airport environments. As a result, cheap bids on contracts and profitable sales prevented the company's original plan to discontinue the Transit MKI in 1999. The company also started producing trucks for a brief time from 1988 until 1996. Th were the Triton series, the 680 series, the 736 semi truck, the 280 medium duty series, and the 145 light duty series were among the models offered in total.

In 1987, a major acquisition was made as Gilfred Truck and Coach purchased the Canadian bus division of Montague Wilson's Constituted Coach Manufacturing, Inc. At the time, Gilfred Truck and Coach rivaled against Orion Bus Industries and New Flyer, along with Melford Bus Industries of La Verne, California.

In July 1989, the company changed its country of incorporation from the United States to Canada. Since then, in 1990, Gilfred had financed the construction of an additional office in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with the purpose of serving as both the company's primary corporate facility and as the office for corporate finance, corporate related activities, and vehicle distribution. It was completed in 1991 and the Lisle, Illinois office was set aside for secondary business operations. Montague Wilson later retired from running the Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation that same year, resulting in the management structure of the company changing, with Moe Bradley (previously in charge of sales), assuming control.

Coincident with this, the company launched the Pluto I, a full-size bus that was much larger than the Mark I Transit. Primarily sold for transit bus usage, the Pluto I is also produced as a school bus or in specialized configurations specified by the customer. Although unrelated, this was also followed that year by the company introducing a brand new dedicated school bus model called the Patron. While produced largely for school use, starting in 1991 the bus would also be produced for multiple applications, including transit, specialty, and commercial configurations.

By the early 1990s, the Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation had then expanded into the heavy-duty bus business with the full-size Low Floor and Transit MK2 buses. The company would also acquire the tooling for the Akademal school bus and in 1993, the company placed it back into production as the Minister school bus. The Minister was built in a new, specially constructed factory in Cleveland, Ohio alongside the Low Floor bus. The Caelus was also released during this time and the company later designed and tested a high-floor bus in 1994. The company delivered the first production model, aptly called the High Floor, to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for trials in 1995 and eventually another to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York for further trials in 1996. In 1997, the Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation delivered a compressed natural gas version of their Transit MKI to Blue Water Area Transit and eventually started taking special orders from nationwide transit agencies for custom buses.

On November 18, 1993, Gilfred was purchased by private equity firms Harvest Partners and Lightyear Capital. Joshua Bradley took over running the business later that year, and Moe Bradley subsequently demoted himself to vice-CEO. He was later inducted into the American Public Transportation Association's Hall of Fame for his work at the company.

While the late 1990s were calmer than the late 1970s for Gorganstien, it still remained a time of relative turmoil for the company and its subsidiaries; this would carry into the 2000s. As a former division of Gorganstien, a 35% stake of the company was owned by the Volvo Group, the largest bus manufacturer in the world. However, Murdovsky still held about a 40% interest in Gilfred.

In 1996, the company launched the Midget, a bus body designed for cutaway van chassis. Primarily sold for transit bus usage, the Midget is also produced as a school bus, a MFSAB (activity bus), or in specialized configurations specified by the customer. In 1997, the company also acquired the tooling for the Başucu and Akadelızı school buses. Both buses were put back into production with the Akadelızı first being reintroduced in February 1997 as the Micro Coach, this was followed later by the Başucu becoming the Pluto II Conventional. Although unrelated, this was also followed in 1998 by the company delivering a brand new low-floor bus called the Venus to Strathcona County Transit.

In July 1998, Murdovsky Motors of Michigan acquired the Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation for an undetermined amount. In a bid to regain a share of sales, Murdovsky also split off the company's truck manufacturing operations into a new, independent company simply called the Gilfred Truck Corporation. As a result, Murdovsky changed the name of the main corporation to Gilfred Coach Industries, omitting "truck" from the name. Gilfred Coach Industries' former truck lineup was also transferred to the new Gilfred Truck Corporation. However, to compensate for this though, the company eventually made amends to start dealing with the manufacture of specialist vehicles, initially providing services specifically for body-on-frame sedans to be converted into limousines before eventually expanding to produce vehicles such as Motor homes, step vans derived from their smaller buses, and firetrucks under the later Gilfred Specialist Vehicles subsidiary. Later in September 1998, Gilfred and it's parent company were acquired through a bankruptcy filing by Fortress Investment Group, however this ownership would only last 8 years.

As part of its acquisition by Fortress, Gilfred gradually saw itself positioned exclusively into transit bus and yellow school bus production. Despite this, the company would still offer speciality vehicles for another ten years.

During the early part of the 2000s, Gilfred began on making its school and transit bus products more competitive. Gilfred would also make a number of corporate strides, investigating hybrid and alternative fuel technology for future bus models. Following the introduction of the Python and Jupiter Coach buses in 1992, Gilfred had sought to develop its own coach from the ground up to compete with the Prevost H-Series. Adapted from the Jupiter coach, the Guardian underwent a major change before its release. In a major break from precedent coaches, Gilfred had designed the Guardian coach exclusively for use in commuter and long distance transit applications. Ironically, though, the Guardian had since become split into two models with the Guardian Coach still being sold, whilst the second model became known as the Warden Coach. The latter model has since undergone gradual mechanical and aesthetic changes to distinguish itself from the Guardian, but subsequent changes had made it resemble the Prevost H-series in more recent years despite the Guardian model in general competing against the aforementioned H-series upon the former's introduction.

In 2001, the company introduced the Pluto II transit bus and also updated the transit version of their Patron bus to be more compliant with newer transit regulations.

On February 17, 2002, Gilfred received a whopping order of over 160 buses. Of the total, around 40 were the Patron model (specified in transit configuration), 60 being the Low Floor, and the majority the buses were the Jupiter XL model, breaking the previous record order in 1998 for the company, which was the combined order for 120 buses by both the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York. Also, the Python and Jupiter motor coaches had been built in over 2 million units overall by 2003, and by 8 June 2006, at least 8 million units had been made.

With the company focusing more on school bus and transit bus production, the Guardian received a significant update for 2006. In addition to inheriting a body shorter in height based on the Python coach, the overall design received cosmetic updates and was solely adapted for use as a commuter coach. For 2007, the company expanded it's school bus line as it introduced a school bus variant of the Guardian that was available only within the United States. In fact, the majority of sales of the Guardian School Bus were concentrated on the East Coast, despite sales along the West Coast were diffused among certain operators as well as scattered throughout the majority of the United States. The school bus version was eventually spun off into a variant of the Warden Transit Coach model in 2008.

On May 13 2006, Gilfred became a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the company's then-CEO, Robert Bryson, called the event an indicator that the company's operational and financial turnaround had been accomplished. Eventually, some (but not all) of Gilfred's several bus models underwent extensive restyling in 2007. These included the minor restyling of the Caelus and Phaeton semi-forward transit buses with an updated automobile influenced front clip design and a complete overhaul of the popular Jupiter coach with new front and rear endcaps.

In November 2009, Gilfred further streamlined its bus production as it entered into a joint venture with Canadian transit bus manufacturer New Flyer.

For 2010, Gilfred dedicated its resources solely towards motor coach, transit bus, and school bus production. Limousine conversion services were discontinued early that year and by mid-2010 the remainder of specialist vehicle production was split off into a new subsidiary called Gilfred Specialist Vehicles. The company also sold some of their motor home models to Complete Coach Works by 2011.

In 2013, Gilfred Coach Industries celebrated the 30th anniversary of its founding.

In September 2014, the company added a third factory in La Verne, California, a Los Angeles County city, after utilizing a second facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma for more than 22 years. Despite the company's initial plans to acquire the former Crown Coach facility in Chino, California, decisions came to a final conclusion that the company would rather finance the development of the La Verne plant than acquire the Chino facility after multiple failed attempts. Gilfred also intended to build a warehouse in Burbank for the storage and distribution of parts, but that project fell through. As a result of the so-called "Chino acquisition incident" and the need for more manufacturing space, the business in 2018 drafted plans for a plant adjacent to the then-former Gillig facility in Hayward, California. Gilfred also invested $325 million in all four plants with plans to eventually scale up to assembling up to 30 million buses per year in the Hayward facility.

In May 2017, New Flyer and Gilfred announced a second joint venture to design and manufacture a medium-duty low-floor bus (or midi bus) for the North American markets. The bus was loosely based on the New flyer Xcelsior design (with only the front clip entirely resembling that of the Xcelsior) and was known as the Gilfred Caelus II after Gilfred's later-discontinued Caelus model. New Flyer engineered and tested the bus, and it was built and marketed by Gilfred under contract. Subsequently, upon the Caelus series' official 2017 discontinuation, most bus enthusiasts and some public transport operators began to call it the "Caelus I." The "Caelus I" name is an unofficial retronym applied to the original Caelus in order to distinguish the original semi-forward control design from the newer Caelus II series, which was released that same year.