East Lancashire Coachbuilders Limited was a manufacturer of

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

bodies and

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

s founded in 1934 in

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The company went into administration for a short while in August 2007, before being bought by Darwen Group and performed a reverse takeover with Optare when its parent purchased the company in 2008 and its site and business was later closed in 2012.

History

In 1994 the company expanded into new premises and commenced a programme of development that resulted in a range of single and double deck buses which was the primary source of income for the company. On 17 August 2007, the company went into administration but was saved and bought out by the

Darwen Group The Darwen Group was a bus manufacturer located in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. The company originated from the purchase of East Lancashire Coachbuilders who went into administration in August 2007. After a series of developments, in June 20 ...

the next day. It is thought that the problem was a direct consequence of changing to the

Euro IV The European emission standards are vehicle emission standards for pollution from the use of new land surface vehicles sold in the European Union and EEA member states and the UK, and ships in EU waters. The standards are defined in a seri ...

chassis, with a shortage of

Scania Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...

chassis being a factor. After the purchase, the Darwen Group rebranded the company as Darwen East Lancs. In 2008, Jamesstan Investments, an investment company controlled by the Darwen Group, purchased another bus manufacturer,

Optare Switch Mobility (originally called Optare) is an English bus manufacturer based in Sherburn-in-Elmet, North Yorkshire. It is a subsidiary of Indian company Ashok Leyland. The company would be responsible for the EV operations of the group with ...

. Later, in June 2008, a

reverse takeover A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public compan ...

was performed, with the Darwen name disappearing in favour of Optare's. This brings East Lancs name into the Optare Group, with an expanded range of vehicles. Production of all the original East Lancs bodies ceased by 2011, and the premises in Blackburn closed in 2012.

Products

East Lancs has had many different styles of bodywork. They had a tradition of using

cacography Cacography is bad spelling or bad handwriting. The term in the sense of "poor spelling, accentuation, and punctuation" is a semantic antonym to orthography, and in the sense of "poor handwriting" it is an etymological antonym to the word calligra ...

, mostly replacing a letter i with a letter y, which continued until the Esteem and Olympus series. * Greenway * EL2000 predecessor to the Flyte * Cityzen predecessor to the OmniDekka *Pyoneer predecessor to the Lolyne

Low floor buses

In the early 1990s, East Lancs developed buses for the low floor market with the style of the body being based on the former East Lancs Pyoneer. * Lolyne for Dennis Trident chassis. *

Vyking Vyking (Harold Carl Everson) is a fictional character, a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is depicted as a member of the Strikeforce: Morituri. The character was created by Peter B. Gillis and ...

for Volvo B7TL chassis. * Nordic for tri-axle

Volvo B7L The Volvo B7L is a fully low floor single-decker bus, double-decker bus and articulated bus chassis with a rear engine mounted vertically on the left of the rear overhang. It was built as a replacement for the Volvo B10L, and the Volvo Olympi ...

chassis. * Spryte for

Dennis Dart The Dennis Dart is a rear-engined single-decker midibus chassis that was introduced by Dennis Specialist Vehicles of Guildford, England in 1989, replacing the Dennis Domino. Initially built as a high-floor design, In 1996 the low-floor second ...

and

Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

B6BLE chassis ** Flyte - Step entrance variant that superseded the EL2000 on Scania, Volvo and Kirin chassis as well as Leyland Tiger rebodying.

Myllennium Facelift

In 1999, the buses received a front and interior overhaul with the style of the body being based on the new

East Lancs Myllennium The East Lancs Myllennium was a type of single-decker bus body manufactured by East Lancashire Coachbuilders on DAF SB220, Dennis Dart SLF, MAN 14.220 and Scania OmniTown chassis. It was designed in 1999 as a bus for Millennium Dome routes M1 ...

that was launched for the Millennium Dome routes. * Myllennium Lolyne with Dennis Trident chassis * Myllennium Vyking with Volvo B7TL chassis * Myllennium Lowlander with DAF/VDL DB250LF chassis * Myllennium Nordic for 3-axle

Volvo B9TL The Volvo B9TL is a low-floor double-decker bus built by Volvo from 2002 until 2018. It superseded the Volvo Super Olympian and the Volvo B7TL. The 2-axle version has been superseded by the Volvo B5TL in 2014 and the 3-axle version has been su ...

* Myllennium for

DAF SB220 The DAF SB220 was a full-size single-decker bus chassis produced by DAF Bus International from 1985. Initially only built in left hand drive, in 1988 a right hand drive version was launched for the United Kingdom market. An articulated vers ...

, MAN 14.220,

Scania N94UB The Scania 4-series low floor city bus and coach range was introduced by Scania in 1997 as a successor to the 3-series bus range. The 4-series bus range was first presented in September 1996, when the integral low-floor city bus OmniCity w ...

and Alexander Dennis Dart ** Hyline, a high-floor variant used to re-body Leyland Tiger buses.

Kinetec

The Kinetec was launched at the Euro Bus Expo 2006. They are designed as low-floor bodies for MAN chassis. They have the Esteem/Olympus body but with MAN's own Lion's City design front and rear. A double decker based on the Kinetec was built called the Kinetec+ however it was a one off order and Kinetec buses were phased out with the new acquisition by Darwen Group in 2008.

Scania and Esteem product range

These buses are the last surviving variants of the original low floor series which became part of their own series. The Scania product range used the Myllennium styling but with Scania own front styling. Whereas the Esteem products used an original front, which developed into a new body entirely. The Scania products were launched in 2004, however the OmniTown wasn't as well received as the company hoped and was discontinued after Darwen took over ownership. * OmniTown for

chassis * OmniDekka for

Scania N94UD The Scania 4-series low floor city bus and coach range was introduced by Scania in 1997 as a successor to the 3-series bus range. The 4-series bus range was first presented in September 1996, when the integral low-floor city bus OmniCity was ...

/ N230UD/N270UD chassis Metroline SEL762 LK07 BCZ

Both the Esteem and the Olympus (its double decker variant) were launched in 2006. An open top version of the Olympus, named East Lancs Visionaire was launched in summer 2007 with

Arriva Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.The Original Tour Tootbus London, formerly The Original Tour is a London bus tour operator using open-top double-decker buses. It also holds the franchise to run City Sightseeing's London tour. Based in Wandsworth, it is a subsidiary of RATP Dev. History T ...

. * Esteem for

Alexander Dennis Enviro200 Dart The Alexander Dennis Enviro200 (previously known as the TransBus Enviro200) is a midibus that was manufactured by TransBus International and later Alexander Dennis between 2003 and 2018. The original TransBus Enviro200 design was innovative but ...

, MAN 12.240, Scania N230UB,

and

Alexander Dennis Enviro300 The Alexander Dennis Enviro300 (previously known as the TransBus Enviro300) is a light-weight full-size single-decker bus that was built by Alexander Dennis and its predecessor TransBus International between 2001 and 2015. The design was the first ...

chassis * Olympus for

Alexander Dennis Enviro400 The Alexander Dennis Enviro400 is a twin-axle low-floor bus, low-floor double-decker bus that was built by the United Kingdom, British bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis between 2005 and 2018. It replaced the Alexander ALX400, Dennis Trident 2, ...

VDL DB250 The VDL DB250 (originally the DAF DB250) was a twin-axle double-decker bus chassis manufactured by VDL Bus & Coach. DB250 The DAF DB250 was launched in October 1991 and originally only available with Optare Spectra bodywork with 260 built, mai ...

and

Scania N230UD The Scania N series is a line of low-floor bus chassis with straight-up, transversely mounted Euro IV or newer engine at the rear, built by Scania AB, Scania since 2006, replacing the Scania N94. It is available as the N UB (N230UB, N270UB, N280 ...

chassis *

Visionaire The VisionAire VA-10 Vantage is a prototype single-engined light business-jet (or "very light jet") designed and developed by the American company VisionAire Jets Corporation. Originally planned for production in the late 1990s, the original Visio ...

open-top body for Volvo B9TL chassis Production of these buses continued under

Darwen Darwen is a market town and civil parish in the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The residents of the town are known as "Darreners". The A666 road passes through Darwen towards Blackburn to the north, Bolton to the sout ...

ownership.

Related companies

British City Bus was the parent company that owned East Lancashire Coachbuilders. The company was dissolved after Darwen Group rescued East Lancs from administration in 2007. East Lancs Overseas was a subsidiary of East Lancashire Coachbuilders in charge of taking orders and exporting buses. It was dissolved after Darwen Group rescued East Lancs from administration in 2007. Darwen North West was a vehicle repair business in

Blackburn, England Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

, offering

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

refurbishment, repair, maintenance, and conversion services. It was originally a subsidiary of the bus manufacturer, called North West Bus & Coach Repairs which was renamed to Darwen North West after the acquisition of assets by Darwen Group. It was later dissolved in 2013.

References

External links

East Lancashire Coachbuilders
{{Bus manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom 1934 establishments in England Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1934 Companies based in Blackburn Defunct companies of England Switch Mobility