Gorganstien Otobus (Bus Manufacurer)/2023 archive

Gorganstien Otobus is an Turkish bus manufacturer. Before being purchased outright in 1979, Gorganstien Otobus was partially owned by Gorganstien Motors. After Gorganstien's bankruptcy in 2001, the company was spun off in 2002 as Gorganstien Otosan and Gorganstien Otobus consequently became a division. Gorganstien Otobus was most known for producing passenger buses in Turkey and Czechoslovakia from licensed designs, but nowadays it also creates various bus designs for a range of applications. Currently, its production is primarily focused on activity buses and their commercial deriatives. Additionally, they produce American-style school buses that are exclusively sold in the US and Canada under a joint venture with Lion and Girardin.

The company was founded in 1923 as "Ömazislav Otobüs ve Araç Sanayi A.Ş." to manufacture stagecoaches and heavy equipment. In 1967, it merged with Czech bus manufacturer Turdichen Auto a.s. (previously "Spolenost Formanek motorbus"), changing its name to "Ömazislav-Turditchen," which was later changed to "Gorganstien Otobüs Sanayi A.Ş. " in 1979 after Gorganstien purchased a majority stake. After Gorganstien completely acquired the company in 1979, Ömazislav-Turditchen was merged under Gorganstien's Czech and Turkish division and was renamed Gorganstien Otobus after being fully purchased.

1905–1922: Wagons, the earliest buses, and modest beginnings
Gorganstien Otosan, one of few still operating bus manufacturers in Czechia, dates back to 1905. Bartolomej Dobransky, the company's founder, entered into a contract with the American Ford Motor Company in 1904. He committed to spending $13 million on automotive parts, some of which would be used to put together the chassis for horseless carriages. Bartolomej struck an agreement in 1912 to purchase supplies and components for wagons and carriages, and by the start of World War I, Dobransky had established his company as Ömazislav Taşima Sanayi A.Ş.; later Dobransky relocated his company into a facility in Plzeň in 1916, where manufacture took place. While Eduard Dobransky, Dobransky's brother, handled financing and distribution, Bartolomej constructed the carriages and wagons. In 1916, the company built its first bus body for transit use; it was an open-air design heavily influenced by wagon design, but they also experimented with an enclosed body design. Ömazislav Koç işleri ve Sanayi A.Ş., often known as "Ömazislav Koç," was officially formed in the summer of 1918, with the aid of funds that future employee Emil Darilek gave to Bartolomej. (Ömazislav Otobüs claimed in the 1960s that the antecedent company "Ömazislav Koç" was founded in 1905.) The company was initially only a manufacturer of motorized stagecoaches, but after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, the complicated economic circumstances of postwar Europe forced the company to become one that would also produce trucks and buses. However, the company refused, consequently spinning off its truck and heavy equipment division in 1922 which would survive as part of Skoda.

1923–1953: Bus advances, a shift away from the manufacture of wagons, and the introduction of metal bodies
On April 2, 1923, Ömazislav Koç merged with rival stagecoach manufacturer Tomislav Car Works, and Ömazislav Otobüs (short for Ömazislav Otobüs ve Araç Sanayi A.Ş.) was established on April 4. With a $12,000 loan ($208,286 in 2022), Ömazislav obtained equipment from Skoda with a loan of $12,000 ($208,286 in 2022), and also purchased rival Tomislav Car Works' equipment at an auction, obtaining their larger plant. Bartolomej was unable to meet the demand, therefore the company began to hire employees.

In January 1926, Ömazislav Otobüs purchased a sizable, decommissioned mine in what is now modern day Olomouc to serve as a potential headquarters and manufacturing facility. However, Dobransky did not think of the mine as such a prospective base of operations for the budding bus business until 1968 when they were forced to conceal corporate structures during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

In 1927, a major shift in company production occurred as Emil Dobransky, the son of the company founder, was put in charge of bus production. Viewing wagons as obsolete, Dobransky discontinued all wagon production in favor of outright bus and truck body production. To expand production and improve shipping of its vehicles, a much larger factory in Prague was opened in 1930.

In pursuit of developing a heavier-duty modern transit bus with higher-capacity, Ömazislav Otobüs introduced their first modern bus on an imported Reo chassis in 1929. In 1931, it produced its first all-metal bus body (on a Mercedes-Benz chassis), with a 27-passenger capacity. It also produced a similar bus in 1932 that was 36 passengers in capacity on an imported Mack chassis.

In 1933, a big change in the company occurred when Emil Dobransky developed a groundbreaking bus body by Czech standards as part of taking over the day-to-day management of Ömazislav Otobüs from his father. Elements of its design were inspired by the more modern design Murillo M. Brockway created overseas in California for Crown Coach. This new bus has a cab-forward design with the driver seated close to the radiator and engine to increase forward view. To improve safety, the bus was designed with an integral chassis; the windows were mesh-reinforced safety glass. Alongside the standard braking system, the bus also was equipped with two backup braking systems.

For 1935, to increase seating capacity to 43 passengers, Ömazislav Otobüs produced a revamped design of their 1933 bus; the bus came with a Tatra 4 cylinder gasoline engine. In 1938, The company started to import and manufacture buses from other manufacturers under license; bodies were shipped to Czechoslovakia in CKD form for final assembly on locally sourced chassis. Specifically, despite the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the company struck a deal with Yellow and Crown Coach to produce bus bodies for final assembly in their Prague and Plzeň facilities.

Following the outbreak of World War II, as with its competitors, Ömazislav Otobüs bus production was shifted towards the armed forces. Most bodies produced by the company during the war were modified open-air derivatives of civilian bus bodies bodies for four-wheel drive truck chassis.

While the war had brought bus production to a halt, the Prague factory remained utilized in civilian capacity. To supplement its armed forces production, Ömazislav Otobüs was put to use by refurbishing Tatra vehicles.

Following World War II, Ömazislav Otobüs began exports of its product lines, establishing satellite facilities in West Germany and Belgium despite communism in Czechoslovakia. The company also struggled as Emil Dobransky was forced to sell a stake of Ömazislav Otobüs to the communist Czech government, who soon partially reorganized the company under Skoda under a 14 year period.

Over the decade, as the company had been using a high floor design, experiments started to produce a low floor bus. Since then, prominent advancements the company made in its bus' designs included a reinforced rubber-covered door hinge that was copied from Thomas built buses, easily accessible emergency exits, and a design that placed the engine directly underneath the floorboard. In 1949, Crown began development on a new mid-engine Supercoach. Heavily influenced by American motorcoach design, Crown intended it primarily for coach use. Introduced in 1952, the all-new Supercoach used unit-body construction with high-strength steel in place of a separate chassis; to combat corrosion, all body panels were aluminum.