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

Gilfred Coach Industries (originally Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation) is an American bus manufacturer. Incorporated in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada since 1989, the company has operational headquarters in Lisle, Illinois. Tracing its roots to 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 in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The declining economy of the late 1970s also cut into 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. Both Pittsburgh-based Constituted Coach Manufacturing, Inc., industrialist Montague "Gilfred" Wilson's prior bus manufacturing company, and Gorganstien Otobüs were one of the lesser known bus companies that were hit hardest by this event despite both mostly focusing on transit buses. In fact, Gorganstien Otobüs was technically among the many school bus manufacturers impacted because their success in that market was a result of the company's American Omasislav Autobus subsidiary, which was unintentionally incorporated to specialize in school bus manufacturing. That subsidiary was ultimately kept afloat by satisfactory sales of their Akademal, Akadelizi, and Basucu school bus models. However, the Akadelizi model was so far the only model that performed well in sales, with the Akademal and Basucu models eventually struggling as the 1980s set in.

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 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 Transit MKI. The first dedicated transit bus produced by Gilfred, the Transit MKI would be produced from 1985 to 2013. Originally designed as a mid-size high floor transit bus, the Transit MKI became popular as a bus for use in airport environments and the Transit MKI was saved from discontinuation by low bids on contracts.

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 1991, Montague Wilson retired from running the Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation, resulting in the management structure of the company changing, with Moe Bradley (previously in charge of sales), assuming control of the company.

The company also started producing trucks for a brief time from 1988 until 1996. Among these trucks were the 736 semi truck, the 280 medium duty truck and the 145 light duty truck.

By the early 1990s, the Gilfred Truck and Coach Corporation 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 company later designed and tested a high-floor bus in 1994 and 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. In 1998, the company delivered 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 $17M. 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 the word "truck." Gilfred Coach Industries' former truck lineup was also transferred to the new Gilfred Truck Corporation.