Vanden Plas is the name of coachbuilders who produced bodies for specialist and up-market automobile manufacturers. Latterly the name became a top-end luxury model designation for cars from subsidiaries of British Leyland and the Rover Group, being last used in 2009 to denote the top-luxury version of the Jaguar XJ (X350).
Pietro Frua was one of the leading Italian coachbuilders and car designers during the 1950s and 1960s.
Strachan and Brown were an English coach building partnership and then a limited liability company from 1894 to 1974. The firm was originally founded in 1894 by Walter Ernest Brown as a sole trader. In 1896 S A Hughes joined and it became a partnership know as Brown and Hughes. In 1908 James Marshall Strachan joined the partnership with it being renamed Brown, Hughes and Strachan. In the partnership was put into liquidation in 1915. A new partnership with Strachan and Brown was formed that same year and lasted until 1928.
Talbot-Lago was a French automobile manufacturer based in Suresnes, Hauts de Seine, outside Paris. The company was owned and managed by Antonio Lago, an Italian engineer that acquired rights to the Talbot brand name after the demise of Darracq London's subsidiary Automobiles Talbot France in 1936.
Delahaye was a family-owned automobile manufacturing company, founded by Émile Delahaye in 1894 in Tours, France. Manufacturing was moved to Paris following incorporation in 1898 with two marriage-related brothers-in-law, George Morane and Leon Desmarais, as Emile Delahaye's equal partners. The company built a low volume line of limited production luxury cars with coachbuilt bodies; trucks; utility and commercial vehicles; buses; and fire-trucks. Delahaye made a number of technical innovations, particular in its early years. After establishing a racing department in 1932, the company came to prominence in France in the mid-to-late 1930s, first with the International record-breaking Type 138; then, the Type 135 that famously evolved into the special short-wheelbase sports-racing Type 135CS; followed by the V12 types 145 and 155 racecars. Many races were won, and records set. The company faced setbacks due to the Second World War, and was taken over by amalgamation with arch competitor Hotchkiss in 1954. Both were absorbed by the large Brandt manufacturing organization, within months, with automotive products ended. Delahaye closed forever at the end of 1954, taking Delage along with it.
A coachbuilder or body-maker is a person or company who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles. Coachwork is the body of an automobile, bus, horse-drawn carriage, or railway carriage. The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs. A vehicle body constructed by a coachbuilder may be called a "coachbuilt body" or "custom body".
Thrupp & Maberly was a British coachbuilding business based in the West End of London, England. Coach-makers to Queen Victoria they operated for more than two centuries until 1967 when they closed while in the ownership of Rootes Group.
Hooper & Co. was a British coachbuilding business for many years based in Westminster London. From 1805 to 1959 it was a notably successful maker, to special order, of luxury carriages, both horse-drawn and motor-powered.
Carrosserie Pourtout was a French coachbuilding company. Founded by Marcel Pourtout in 1925, the firm is best known for its work in the decades prior to World War II, when it created distinctive and prestigious bodies for cars from numerous European manufacturers. Pre-war Pourtout bodies were mainly one-off, bespoke creations, typically aerodynamic and sporting in character. Together with chief coach designer and stylist Georges Paulin from 1933 to 1938, Pourtout pioneered the Paulin invented 'Eclipse' retractable hardtop system on four models of Peugeot, several Lancia Belna's and other car makes.
Among the company's customers was Georges Clemenceau, the physician and journalist who served as the prime minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and 1917 to 1920.
The Delahaye Type 175 is a coachbuilt luxury automobile manufactured by French automaker Delahaye. Production build numbers were formally recorded from early 1948 to mid 1951, validating that 107 cars were built in the mechanically cloned three wheelbase series comprising the Types 175/175S, 178 and 180.
Saoutchik was a French coachbuilding company founded in 1906 and based in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. The company was one of the best-known coachbuilders in France in the 1920s and 1930s and, together with Figoni et Falaschi and Franay, is considered one of the most important representatives of the "Baroque" style in French coachwork in the 1930s and 1940s.
Jarvis & Sons Limited were South London-based motor dealers for Morris and MG, and latterly coachworks providing special bodies for various car chassis until after World War II.
Figoni et Falaschi is a French luxury brand and coachbuilder firm which was active from 1935 through to the 1950s. The designs were created by Giuseppe Figoni, while his partner Ovidio Falaschi ran the business.
Carrosserie Vanvooren was a French Coachbuilder based in the north-western Paris suburb of Courbevoie. The company concentrated on producing car bodies for luxury cars, being closely associated, during the 1930s, with the products of Hispano-Suiza, Bugatti, Rolls-Royce and Bentley.
Letourneur & Marchand, located in the prosperous Paris suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a car body manufacturing business which became one of the last French coachbuilders.
Franay was a French coachbuilder operating at Levallois-Perret, a suburb on the prosperous north-western edge of Paris. The company was founded in 1903 by Jean-Baptiste Franay, a carriage upholsterer, following an apprenticeship with Binder. It was later taken over by his son, Marius. Franay car body production stopped in late 1955.
John Charles & Co was a British coachbuilding company founded in 1932 and based initially near Kew Gardens, London.
The Duple 425 was a coach design built by Hestair Duple in the late 1980s, and briefly by Plaxton in the early 1990s.
Martin-Walter was a long established, 1773, firm of harness makers in Folkestone, Kent which switched to building bespoke bodies for motor cars when horse-drawn vehicles began to disappear. As well as bespoke bodies they built short runs for various motor manufacturers. In the Great Depression of the 1930s they made very distinctive Wingham cabriolet bodies which were fitted to a range of chassis from large Vauxhall to Rolls-Royce. After the Second World War they built ambulance bodies and in particular conversions of Bedford vans, "a bedroom on wheels", and other Vauxhall products as well as Austin and Volkswagen Kombi vans.
Antem Carrossier was a French coachbuilding company that, in the period between the world wars and a short time afterwards, produced one-off bodies for luxury car chassis, as well as some bodies in small series production.
