Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH was a German vehicle manufacturer in
Ulm
Ulm () is the sixth-largest city of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with around 129,000 inhabitants, it is Germany's 60th-largest city.
Ulm is located on the eastern edges of the Swabian Jura mountain range, on the up ...
.
Its products were buses,
coaches
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
* Coac ...
, vehicle transporters,
trailers
Trailer may refer to:
Transportation
* Trailer (vehicle), an unpowered vehicle pulled by a powered vehicle
** Baggage trailer, a large flatbed baggage trolley
** Bicycle trailer, a wheeled frame for hitching to a bicycle to tow cargo or passen ...
and special vehicles like
snow groomer vehicles. The group broke up in 1995 due to economic problems and was acquired by
Daimler Truck
Daimler Truck AG (holding company legal name Daimler Truck Holding AG) is the world's largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, with over 35 main locations worldwide and approximately 100,000 employees. Daimler Truck AG is headquartered in Leinfel ...
, which continues to produce under the brand name
Setra.
History
In 1893,
Karl Kässbohrer Karl may refer to:
People
* Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name
* Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne
* Karl of Austria, last Austrian Emperor
* Karl (footballer) (born 1993), Karl Cach ...
founded the Wagenfabrik Kässbohrer in Ulm.
In 1922, Kässbohrer developed a trailer for goods transport, having solid rubber wheels. When Karl Kässbohrer senior died in 1922, his sons,
Karl junior and
Otto Kässbohrer
Otto Kässbohrer (26 January 1904 – 20 June 1989, Ulm) was a German entrepreneur and vehicle manufacturer. In 1951 he designed and constructed one of the first chassisless buses.
Life
Kässbohrer started his apprenticeship in 1919 in the Ka ...
, took over the company and began to produce the first 2x4 axle trailers.
In 1928, Karl and Otto purchased Ulmer Karosseriefabrik Neuer & Thieme, a frame and body construction company, and focused on coach, bus, trailer and upper body production.
In 1931 Karl applied for a patent on semi-trailer coupling which was extremely reliable and low maintenance and further paved the way to 3-axle semi-trailers which changed the transportation industry.
In the mid to late 1930s the first low-bed with 12 ton capacity was produced and the Kässbohrer Ulm factory in Peter-Schmid-Straβe expanded to meet demand with staff numbers increasing from 300 to 1000 between the years 1934 and 1939.
In 1969, Kässbohrer was Germany's biggest coach and truck trailer producer. On April 29, 1973, Karl Kässbohrer died.
Kässbohrer's coaches and buses were named
Setra. The snow-grooming vehicles were called PistenBully and 2,000 were sold between 1979 and 1989. At the end of the 1990s, about 9,000 employees worked for Kässbohrer.
Starting in 1993, the company began falling apart. The division's truck bodies, semi-trailers and trailers were sold to the competitor
Kögel. In 1994 the snow groomer and beach cleaner division was bought out by management and became
Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug
Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG is a German specialized vehicle manufacturer based in Laupheim. It is the worldwide market leader in snow grooming and sand cleaning machines marketed under the brands ''PistenBully'' and ''BeachTech''.
History
...
.
Daimler bought the bus and coach division in 1995 and the new name
EvoBus was introduced. The only division which is still family owned is
Kässbohrer Transport Technik Gmbh in
Salzburg, Austria
Salzburg is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Alps mountains.
The town occupies the site of the Roman settlement ...
, which builds vehicle transporters. There is also a current
Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke Kässbohrer or Käßbohrer may refer to:
Persons
* Karl Heinrich Kässbohrer (1864–1922), German entrepreneur and vehicle constructor, founder of Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke
* Karl Kässbohrer (1901–1973), German entrepreneur and vehicle ...
in
Goch
Goch (; archaic spelling: Gog) is a town in the Kleve (district), Kleve district of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, close to the border with the Netherlands, south of Kleve and southeast of Nijmegen.
History
Goch is at least 750 years old: th ...
, Germany, manufacturing trailers for commercial vehicles, and is since 2002 part of the Tirsan group.
A great number of Kässbohrer Setra coaches and buses are still in service on European roads, sometimes having a mileage of more than a million kilometers.
See also
*
Ankai
Anhui Ankai Automobile Co., Ltd., is a Chinese automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Hefei, Anhui, which specialises in the production of buses and coaches. Ankai's products include urban buses, regular coaches, sleeping berth coache ...
*
Eagle Bus
*
Seida
Sociedad Española de Importación y Distribución de Automóviles (S.E.I.D.A. or, more commonly, Seida) was a Spanish cars and trucks dealer and coachbuilder that later evolved into making integral chassisless motorcoaches. In 1998, it was subsum ...
*
Setra
*
Chavdar
References
Notes
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kassbohrer
Companies based in Ulm
Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Germany
Defunct bus manufacturers
Bus manufacturers of Germany