Danish Automobile Building (DAB) (Danish: Dansk Automobil Byggeri A/S) was a Danish

bus manufacturer Bus manufacturing, a sector of the automotive industry, manufactures buses and coaches. History Bus manufacturing had its earliest origins in carriage building. Other bus manufacturers had their origins in truck manufacturing. Historically, ...

based in

Silkeborg Silkeborg () is a Danish town with a population of 49,747 (1 January 2022).Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. ...

Krupp The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, is notable for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG (Friedrich Krupp ...

, and Büssing-NAG. DAB became a mainstream bus builder through the World Wars. In 1953 DAB started collaborating with Leyland Motors of Great Britain and as a result DAB used Leyland components for many of its buses, commonly building bodies on Leyland chassis, although they still bodied buses on different chassis as needs arose. In the 1970s Leyland bought a majority stake in DAB and renamed the factory Leyland-DAB, DAB also built buses on Leyland underframes, some for import into the UK, such as the Leyland-DAB Lion and

Guy Arab The Guy Arab was a bus chassis manufactured by Guy Motors. It was introduced in 1933 as a double deck chassis. In 1942, Guy launched a modified version with wartime constraints requiring components previously made of aluminium to be made from ...

. From 1964, DAB built a standardized bus, mainly for

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

. These buses fell into 7 distinct models and went on to be sold to other private companies in Denmark until the model VII well into the 1990s. DAB's buses were alloy-bodied and of modular construction. In the 1980s DAB also started making

articulated buses An articulated bus, also referred to as a banana bus, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, wiggle wagon, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, (either a motor bus or trolleybus) is an articulated vehicle used in public transportation. It is usu ...

, producing the

Leyland-DAB articulated bus The Leyland-DAB articulated bus was an articulated bus manufactured by Leyland-DAB in Denmark. The Leyland-DAB artic found customers in Denmark, and was the first modern style articulated bus in the United Kingdom, albeit with limited repeat ...

. This saw domestic usage, and was the first articulated bus in the United Kingdom, albeit with limited repeat orders. With the decline of Leyland, the Leyland DAB division was included in the 1987 sale of Leyland Bus to

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 ...

. In 1990 DAB went on to be a participant in the

United Bus United Bus was a bus manufacturing group created by DAF Bus and Bova (both from the Netherlands) in 1989. It was later joined by Den Oudsten (Netherlands), Optare (UK), and DAB (Denmark).DAF Bus, Bova,

Den Oudsten Den Oudsten Bussen B.V. was a Dutch coachbuilder and components manufacturer. The company was founded in 1926 by a local carriage-builder, Marinus den Oudsten. Its headquarters were just outside the city of Woerden. It eventually ceased all ac ...

and

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 ...

, with United Bus holding 70% of the shares of DAB. With the failure of the United venture, DAB became a wholly Danish owned factory again. In the 1990s with the move to

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 ...

es, DAB developed a new concept, the Travelator, later sold as the Servicebus. This was a full low floor short bus with the doors being placed behind the front wheels,www.aalborgbus.dk
Image of a DAB 'service bus' in a similar concept to the later

Optare Solo The Optare Solo is a low-floor minibus/midibus with one or two doors manufactured by Optare in the United Kingdom since 1998. The Solo name is a play on its low-floor status, the manufacturer marketing its vehicle as having an entrance that is ...

. Unusually the rear wheels could be specified as steering single wheels. The model was popular, gaining several export orders.

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

took over the factory in 1995, the DAB models were initially continued. In 1997 DAB Silkeborg was renamed Scania A/B, Silkeborg. In 1999 production of in house DAB's by now more conventional low floor full length buses was discontinued, in favour of becoming one of two sites building Scania's own models, the OmniLink and OmniCity, the other site being

Katrineholm Katrineholm (pronunciation: or ) is a locality and the seat of Katrineholm Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 24,271 inhabitants in 2018. It is located in the inland of Södermanland and is the third largest urban area in the county ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

. Due to low order levels, Scania sold the factory to

Vest Busscar Vest Buss is a former Norwegian bus and coach bodywork manufacturer, and is currently the official distributor for Iveco Bus in Norway and Sweden. The company was founded in Stryn in 1965 as ''Vest Karosseri AS'', building their first bus bodywo ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

in 2002, ending the DAB name.

References

busexplorer.com
Chapter 18: Danish Bus Builders, 4.1. DAB {{Authority control Bus manufacturers of Denmark Defunct companies of Denmark Danish companies established in 1912