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, 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 cut clashed with the profitability of Gorganstien's Gorganstien Otobüs subsidiary. Further to this, their bus 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 billionaire Montague "Gilfred" Wilson and located in Pittsburgh, as well as Gorganstien Otobüs were both in severe financial damage by this event. Since the company's American Omasislav Autobus subsidiary was unintentionally set to solely specialize in school bus manufacturing despite the intention to manufacture both school, transit, and coach buses, Gorganstien Otobüs was technically one of the many school bus manufacturers affected. The successful sales of their Akademal, Akadelizi, and Basucu school bus models actually helped to keep that subsidiary afloat. The Akademal and Başucu models eventually struggled as the 1980s took hold, making the Akadelizi model the sole bus that has to date succeeded successfully in sales.

The US-based Omasislav Autobus subsidiary of Gorganstien Otobüs was ultimately spun off in 1980, and eventually on March 17, 1983, Montague "Gilfred" Wilson acquired it from Gorganstien as an effort to preserve that company's manufacturing operations, renaming it Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation. In 1984, Gorganstien eventually established a brand-new U.S. subsidiary of Gorganstien Otobüs in its place called Gorganstien Bus Industries of America in Conway, Arkansas in order to continue serving the U.S. market.

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.

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 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.

During the 2000s, Gilfred would make a number of strides, investigating hybrid and alternative fuel technology for both their Patron and Python models. 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 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. The Python and Jupiter motor coaches were built in over 2 million units overall by 2003, and by 8 June 2006, at least 8 million units had been made.

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 2013, Gilfred Coach Industries marked 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, they finally decided to finance the development of such a factory after failing to acquire the rights to operate the Chino facility. Gilfred also intended to build a warehouse in Burbank for the storage and distribution of parts, but that project fell through. As a result, 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 the plant with plans to eventually scale up to assembling up to 30 million buses per year.

In May 2017, New Flyer and Gilfred announced a joint venture to design and manufacture medium-duty low-floor bus (or midi bus) for the North American market. The bus was based on the Xcelsior's design and was known as the Gilfred Caelus MKII after Gilfred's later-discontinued Caelus model. New Flyer engineered and tested the bus, and it was built and marketed by Gilfred under contract.