Wrightbus is a
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
based bus manufacturer and a pioneer of the
low-floor bus
A low-floor bus is a bus or trolleybus that has no steps between the ground and the floor of the bus at one or more entrances, and low floor for part or all of the passenger cabin. A bus with a partial low floor may also be referred to as a low- ...
. The company was established in 1946 by Robert Wright and was later run by his son
William Wright, until it was acquired in 2019 by British businessman
Jo Bamford
Jo Bamford (born Joseph Cyril Edward Bamford in December 1977) is a British businessman and heir to the multi-billion pound JCB family fortune. After working in the family-owned JCB company, he founded a green hydrogen investment fund and purchas ...
.
History
Wrightbus was founded in 1946 as Robert Wright & Son Coachbuilders. In its early years it rebodied
lorries
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction ...
. In 1978, the company released its first aluminium-structured bus bodywork.
![GHA Coaches NDZ 3161](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/GHA_Coaches_NDZ_3161.JPG)
Wright's breakthrough into the mainstream bus bodybuilding sector came in the early 1990s. The
Handybus was a midibus body offered on a variety of chassis but was more successful than the emerging
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 ...
in attracting reasonably-sized orders from a variety of operators including
London Buses
London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus se ...
,
Go Ahead Northern,
Ulsterbus
Ulsterbus is a public transport operator in Northern Ireland and operates bus services outside Belfast. It is part of Translink, the brand name for the subsidiary operating companies of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, which also ...
and
Citybus (Belfast)
Metro is the trading name for bus company Citybus in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a subsidiary of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, within the common management structure of Translink, along with Ulsterbus and Northern Ireland ...
. This was followed by a move into the full-size single deck market with the
Endeavour which was fitted to
Dennis Javelin
The Dennis Javelin (later known as the Alexander Dennis Javelin) was an underfloor-engined bus and coach chassis manufactured by Dennis and later Alexander Dennis. It was unveiled in 1986 and acted more or less as a modern replacement for the d ...
,
Leyland Tiger
The Leyland Tiger, also known as the B43, was a mid-engined bus and coach chassis manufactured by Leyland between 1981 and 1992. This name had previously been used for a front-engined bus built between 1927 and 1968. It replaced the Leyland Le ...
and
Scania K93 chassis, and enabled Wright to develop its highly successful
Endurance
Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from a ...
body which competed with the
Alexander Strider and
Northern Counties Paladin
The Northern Counties Paladin, also badged as the Plaxton Paladin towards the end of production, is a step-entrance single-decker bus body built by Northern Counties of Wigan, UK, between 1991 and 1998. The replacements for the Paladin are th ...
for orders on
Volvo B10B
The Volvo B10B was a rear-engined step deck single-decker bus chassis manufactured by Volvo between 1992 and 2001. The first prototype were built in 1990, but the B10B wasn't launched until the 1992 Geneva Motor Show. It superseded the Leyland Ly ...
and
Scania N113
The Scania N113 was a transverse-engined step-entrance and low-floor city bus chassis manufactured by Scania between 1988 and 2000.
History
The Scania N113 was designed as a successor to the N112. Most of the single-decker buses and the ...
CRB chassis.
Other Wright products introduced in this period included two
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...
-based products, the
O405 based
Cityranger and the OH1416 based
Urbanranger. The latter was launched around the time bus operators in the UK began switching to
low floor
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i. ...
chassis and consequently only attracted a handful of orders. However, Wright had become well established in the bus bodybuilding sector by then, and was able to exploit the opportunities the low-floor revolution would offer it from the mid-1990s onwards.
Low-floor
In 1993, the
Pathfinder
Pathfinder may refer to:
Businesses
* Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International
* Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature
Computing and information science
* Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser
* Pathfinder ( ...
on low floor
Dennis Lance SLF and
Scania N113
The Scania N113 was a transverse-engined step-entrance and low-floor city bus chassis manufactured by Scania between 1988 and 2000.
History
The Scania N113 was designed as a successor to the N112. Most of the single-decker buses and the ...
CRL chassis was unveiled.
![Nottingham_City_Transport_articulated_bus_701_Scania_L94UA_Wrightbus_Solar_Fusion_Y701_LRB_in_Nottingham,_East_Midlands_10_January_2003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Nottingham_City_Transport_articulated_bus_701_Scania_L94UA_Wrightbus_Solar_Fusion_Y701_LRB_in_Nottingham%2C_East_Midlands_10_January_2003.jpg)
The
Axcess-Ultralow was introduced in 1995 and offered on the
Scania L113
The Scania L113 was a step entrance and low entry single-decker bus chassis manufactured by Scania in Sweden between 1989 and 1998. It is a low entry compartment to the low floor N113.
Design
The L113 was largely a cross between the N113 and ...
chassis. At this time it was selling in reasonable numbers to UK bus operators, but unlike other bodybuilders who could only offer the L113 with step-entrance bodies, Wright modified it by removing the middle section of the chassis and thus offered UK bus operators one of the first mainstream low-floor body/chassis combinations. A major customer for the Axcess-Ultralow was
FirstGroup
FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.[Volvo B10L
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 ...]
based
Liberator introduced at the end of 1995:
National Express
National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...
ordered 120 in 1997.
Next came the
Renown body built on the
Volvo B10BLE
The Volvo B10BLE was a rear-engined low-entry single-decker bus chassis manufactured by Volvo in Sweden between 1993 and 2004. The first prototypes were built in 1992, but mass production started in 1993, only a year after the high-floor B10B. I ...
which went on to become the standard bus of the
Blazefield Group
Transdev Blazefield is a bus group, which operates local and regional bus services across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, England. Formed in August 1991, the group has been a subsidiary of French-based operato ...
. Production was stopped when the B10BLE was replaced by the
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 ...
on the new Wright Eclipse (now Wright Eclipse Metro), which due to its vertical rear engine wasn't popular with many operators. Nevertheless, Wright did not lose custom and many operators such as
Ulsterbus
Ulsterbus is a public transport operator in Northern Ireland and operates bus services outside Belfast. It is part of Translink, the brand name for the subsidiary operating companies of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, which also ...
switched to the incline-engined
Scania L94UB
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 ...
, on a similar
Wright Solar
The Wright Solar is a low entry single-decker bus body that was built on Scania L94UB and Scania K UB chassis by Wrightbus between 2000 and 2011. The Wright Solar Fusion is an articulated version.
Most of the buses are fitted with the same d ...
body. Another bodywork which resembles the current Solar/
Eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...
range is the
Meridian
Meridian or a meridian line (from Latin ''meridies'' via Old French ''meridiane'', meaning “midday”) may refer to
Science
* Meridian (astronomy), imaginary circle in a plane perpendicular to the planes of the celestial equator and horizon
* ...
, which was bodied on the
MAN A22
The MAN Lion's City is a range of low-floor and low-entry public buses built by German truck and bus manufacturer MAN Truck & Bus (previously MAN Nutzfahrzeuge) since 1996 primarily for the European market, but is also available in chassis-only ...
full low-floor single-deck chassis.
Since 2000
![Lothian_Buses_bus_720_Volvo_B7TL_Wrightbus_Eclipse_Gemini_SN55_BLV_Madder_and_White_livery_Route_3_Connect_branding](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Lothian_Buses_bus_720_Volvo_B7TL_Wrightbus_Eclipse_Gemini_SN55_BLV_Madder_and_White_livery_Route_3_Connect_branding.jpg)
The most distinctive Wright product is the
New Routemaster
The New Routemaster, originally referred to as the New Bus for London and colloquially as the Borismaster or Boris Bus, is a low-floor Diesel fuel, diesel double-decker bus operated in London, England. Designed by Heatherwick Studio and manufa ...
London bus, introduced in February 2012 as an update of the
AEC Routemaster
The AEC Routemaster is a Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, front-engined double-decker bus that was designed by London Transport Executive, London Transport and built by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) and Park Royal Vehicles. The ...
. Production ended in 2017 when the 1,000th left the production line.
The first
Wright Eclipse Gemini
The Wright Eclipse Gemini is a low-floor double-decker bus body that was built by Wrightbus since 2001, based on the single-deck Wright Eclipse design. The second-generation Eclipse Gemini 2 was launched in 2009, followed by the third-generat ...
double-decker was built on the
Volvo B7TL chassis in 2001. A similarly styled bus entered service with
Arriva London
Arriva London is a major bus company operating services in Greater London. It is a subsidiary of Arriva UK Bus and operates services under contract to Transport for London. It was formed in 1998 from a fusion of previously separate Arriva s ...
in August 2003 as the
Wright Pulsar Gemini
The Wright Pulsar Gemini was a design of double-decker bus bodywork built onto VDL DB250LF chassis by Wrightbus between 2003 and 2006. It was visually almost identical to the Wright Eclipse Gemini that was mounted on the Volvo B7TL and later ...
on the
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 ...
chassis. Large operators of Gemini-bodied buses include
Arriva
Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.[FirstGroup
FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.][Go-Ahead Group
The Go-Ahead Group plc is a passenger transport company based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, with operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, Norway and Germany. Formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange, in 2022 it was purchased ...]
,
Lothian Buses
Lothian Buses is a major bus operator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the largest municipal bus company in the United Kingdom: the City of Edinburgh Council (through Transport for Edinburgh) owns 91%, Midlothian Council 5%, East Lothian ...
and
National Express
National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...
. In 2016, the
Wright SRM
The Wright SRM (Son of Route Master[Son of Routemaster](_blank)
''Bus & Coach Buyer'' 22 March 2016) i ...
was introduced on the
Volvo B5LH
The Volvo B5LH (initially known as the Volvo B5L Hybrid, also known as the Volvo BRLH) is a low-floor hybrid electric bus chassis for both single-decker buses and double-decker buses manufactured by Volvo Buses, Volvo since 2008. It is the basis ...
.
[London launch for new Wrightbus SRM on Volvo B5LHArchived copy]
''Bus & Coach Professional'' 18 March 2016
Since May 2013, Wrightbus has also built its own chassis, the
StreetLite single-decker and
StreetDeck double decker. However, they still continue to produce bodywork for the
Volvo B5TL
The Volvo B5TL is a 2-axle low-floor bus, low-floor Double-decker bus, double decker built by Volvo Buses, Volvo. It replaced the Volvo B9TL, B9TL as Volvo's Euro 6 2-axle double decker product for the UK and Irish markets.
Design
The B5TL is po ...
,
Volvo B5LH
The Volvo B5LH (initially known as the Volvo B5L Hybrid, also known as the Volvo BRLH) is a low-floor hybrid electric bus chassis for both single-decker buses and double-decker buses manufactured by Volvo Buses, Volvo since 2008. It is the basis ...
and
Volvo B8RLE
The Volvo B8RLE is a 7.7-litre-engined low-entry bus chassis manufactured by Volvo since 2013 for Euro VI markets. It was designed as a replacement for the B7RLE and the B9RLE. The right-hand drive version was launched in November 2014. .
Zero emission
Wrightbus has followed two strategies towards
zero emission Zero emission refers to an engine, motor, process, or other energy source, that emits no waste products that pollute the environment or disrupt the climate.
Zero emission engines
Vehicles and other mobile machinery used for transport (over land, s ...
: battery powered and
fuel-cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requi ...
(powered by hydrogen) vehicles. The operator
Go Ahead has placed orders for fuel-cell buses for its
Metrobus and
Brighton & Hove
Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages.
Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...
fleets, and
Translink Translink (or TransLink) may refer to:
* TransLink (British Columbia), the public transport operator in Vancouver, Canada
* Translink (Northern Ireland)
Translink is the brand name of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company (NITHCo), a ...
in Northern Ireland made an initial order for 38 battery vehicles.
Administration and acquisition by Jo Bamford
Between September and October 2019, Wrightbus entered administration with the suspension of 1,300 jobs at their factory. At the time of administration they were £60m in debt.
On 11 October 2019, a deal was reached in principle between
Jo Bamford
Jo Bamford (born Joseph Cyril Edward Bamford in December 1977) is a British businessman and heir to the multi-billion pound JCB family fortune. After working in the family-owned JCB company, he founded a green hydrogen investment fund and purchas ...
(son of
Anthony Bamford
Anthony Paul Bamford, Baron Bamford, (born 23 October 1945) is a British billionaire businessman who is chairman of J. C. Bamford (JCB). He succeeded his father, Joseph Cyril Bamford, as chairman and managing director of the company in 1975, ...
, chairman of the construction equipment manufacturer
JCB) and the Wright family for the land used by the factory, a sticking point in negotiations to sell the firm. A deal was made with the administrators eleven days later, with Jo Bamford's Bamford Bus Company concluding a takeover of the company.
Since the takeover of Wrightbus, Bamford has been committed to creating a market for hydrogen buses with a reconfigured StreetDeck that is powered by hydrogen. In 2020, Bamford said he planned to build 3,000 buses of this type by 2024.
Exports
In 1997, an order for 25
Wright Crusader-bodied
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 ...
s was delivered to Australian operator
ACTION
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 fil ...
. Between 2003 and 2006, Hong Kong operator
Kowloon Motor Bus
The Kowloon Motor Bus Company (1933) Limited (KMB) is a bus company operating franchised services in Hong Kong. It is the largest bus company in Hong Kong by fleet size and number of bus routes. It is a subsidiary of Transport International.
...
received a total of 164 Wrightbus three-axle double-deckers; 100 of them were on
Volvo Super Olympian
The Volvo Super Olympian was a low-floor double-decker bus manufactured by Volvo. It replaced the 3-axle version of Volvo Olympian. The chassis had the designated manufacturer code B10TL.
History
The Volvo Super Olympian was unveiled in 1998, wi ...
and 64 of them were on
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 ...
chassis. In 2009, Kowloon Motor Bus had ordered a total of 291 buses, including one demonstrator with two-axle, and all buses were in service in 2012. In 2010, the first of 450 Wright Eclipse Gemini 2-bodied
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 ...
s was delivered to
SBS Transit, Singapore till end 2012.
["SBS Transit orders 415 more Geminis" '' Buses'' issue 714 September 2014 page 19]
In 2011, Wrightbus International was established. A contract was awarded by SBS Transit for 565
Wright Eclipse Gemini 2
The Wright Eclipse Gemini is a Low-floor bus, low-floor double-decker bus body that was built by Wrightbus since 2001, based on the single-deck Wright Eclipse design. The second-generation Eclipse Gemini 2 was launched in 2009, followed by the ...
bodied Volvo B9TLs and delivered since January 2013 till June 2015. In November 2012, a contract for 50 Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 bodied Volvos was awarded by Kowloon Motor Bus. These are being sent in
knock-down kit
A knock-down kit (also knockdown kit, knocked-down kit, or simply knockdown or KD) is a collection of parts required to assemble a product. The parts are typically manufactured in one country or region, then exported to another country or region ...
(ckd) form from Ireland and assembled in China and followed by another 85, including two 12.8-metre-long demonstrators. In September 2013, Wrightbus entered into a partnership with
Daimler Buses
Daimler is a German surname. It may refer to:
People
* Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900), German inventor, industrialist and namesake of a series of automobile companies
* Adolf Daimler (1871–1913), engineer and son of Gottlieb Daimler
* Paul D ...
to manufacture buses in
Chennai
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
, India.
In March 2014, orders were secured from Hong Kong operators
Citybus and
New World First Bus
New World First Bus Services Limited (NWFB) is the third-largest bus operator in Hong Kong. Established by NWS Holdings and FirstGroup in September 1998, it took over 88 China Motor Bus services in Hong Kong Island. Since 2020 it has been a s ...
for 51 Volvo B9TLs. These are being sent in CKD form from Northern Ireland and assembled in Malaysia. In July 2014, SBS Transit ordered a further 415 Eclipse Gemini 2-bodied Volvo B9TLs which will be delivered from August 2015 till 2017, increasing the total to 1,430 by 2017.
[
]
Criticism
When Deloitte was appointed in 2019 as the company's administrators, the company was £60 million in debt, with £38.1 million owed to the Bank of Ireland. It was said that they had insufficient assets to pay off its creditors so had the company been liquidated, they would not have been paid. During the six years prior to Wrightbus going into administration, it was reported that Jeff Wright, the owner of the company, had donated £15m to a church he had founded in 2007, Green Pastures Church. This led to protests on 29 September 2019 which were joined by many of the company's former workers, including members of the Wright family.
Products
Current models
Former
Single deck
Double deck
References
External links
*
*
{{Bus manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom
Ballymena
Bus manufacturers of the United Kingdom
Hybrid electric bus manufacturers
Manufacturing companies of Northern Ireland
1946 establishments in Northern Ireland
British companies established in 1946
Brands of Northern Ireland