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The Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company (informally Yellow Coach) was an early manufacturer of passenger
bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...
es in the
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. Between 1923 and 1943, Yellow Coach built
transit bus A transit bus (also big bus, commuter bus, city bus, town bus, urban bus, stage bus, public bus, public transit bus, or simply bus) is a type of bus used in public transport bus services. Several configurations are used, including low-floo ...
es, electric-powered trolley buses, and parlor coaches. Founded in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
in 1923 by John D. Hertz as a subsidiary of his Yellow Cab Company, the company was renamed "Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company" in 1925 when
General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
(GM) purchased a majority stake. After GM completely acquired the company in 1943, it was merged with GM's truck division to form the GM Truck & Coach Division. The car rental subsidiary (known both as ''Hertz Drivurself Corp'' and ''Yellow Drive-It-Yourself'') was purchased back by John Hertz in 1953 through The Omnibus Corporation and floated the following year as The Hertz Corporation.


History

John D. Hertz and associates began acquiring smaller Chicago-area companies involved in bus-building in 1922, and soon assembled a manufacturing site covering four square blocks. Yellow Coach Manufacturing Co was formally established in 1923 as a subsidiary of Hertz's Yellow Cab Company, and sold 207 buses in its first year. George J. Rackham, whose career had commenced with the
London General Omnibus Company The London General Omnibus Company or LGOC, was the principal bus operator in London between 1855 and 1933. It was also, for a short period between 1909 and 1912, a motor bus manufacturer. Overview The London General Omnibus Company was f ...
after the First World War, spent the years 1922–1926 in the U.S., and recognised the advantage of low swept chassis frame for bus development while employed by Yellow. It is likely that he was recruited by Hertz to help start up the bus building business. In 1926, he returned to England to join
Leyland Motors Leyland Motors Limited (later known as the Leyland Motor Corporation) was an English vehicle manufacturer of lorries, buses and trolleybuses. The company diversified into car manufacturing with its acquisitions of Triumph and Rover in 1960 a ...
as Chief Engineer and was responsible for the groundbreaking
Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
and
Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is a large Felidae, cat and a member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Asia. It has a powerful, muscular body with a large head and paws, a long tail and orange fur with black, mostly vertical stripes. It is ...
models. General Motors purchased a controlling stake in the company in 1925 and changed the name to the Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Company, and relocated production to Pontiac West Assembly in
Pontiac, Michigan Pontiac ( ') is a city in and the county seat of Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located roughly northwest of downtown Detroit, Pontiac is part of the Metro Detroit, Detroit metropolitan area, and is vari ...
. Within the transit industry, the company continued to be called simply ''Yellow Coach''. In the 1930s, Yellow Coach produced best-selling models for the rapidly expanding urban transit and intercity bus businesses. (In 1935, national intercity bus ridership climbed 50% to 651,999,000 passengers, surpassing the volume of passengers carried by the
Class I railroad Railroad classes are the system by which Rail freight transport, freight railroads are designated in the United States. Railroads are assigned to Class I, II or III according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportatio ...
s for the first time. ) Yellow Coach played a significant role in the transition from electric streetcars (operating on rails, powered by overhead wires) to transit companys' use of gasoline- or diesel-powered buses operating on rubber wheels (changing from solid wheels to pneumatic
tires A tire (North American English) or tyre (Commonwealth English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over w ...
). For
Greyhound Lines Greyhound Lines, Inc. is an American operator of Intercity bus service, intercity bus services. Greyhound operates the largest intercity bus network in the United States, and also operates charter and Amtrak Thruway services, as well as interci ...
, the largest operator of intercity bus service, Yellow Coach developed distinctive
streamlined Streamlines, streaklines and pathlines are field lines in a fluid flow. They differ only when the flow changes with time, that is, when the flow is not steady flow, steady. Considering a velocity vector field in three-dimensional space in the f ...
models which introduced a high floor, underfloor luggage storage, a flat front,
air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...
, and a diesel engine, supplying more than 1,250 buses during Greyhounds' years of fastest growth. GM purchased the company outright in 1943, merging it into their GM Truck Division to form GM Truck & Coach Division. Although GM continued with the Yellow Coach T-series and P-series product lines, the Yellow Coach badge gave way to the GM Coach or just GM nameplate in 1944. Widespread production of Yellow Coach designs—including certain ZIS buses produced in the Soviet Union—continued until 1959. Limited production of the two remaining small-capacity "Old Look" models (3101/3102 and 3501/3502) would continue until 1969. GMC badges did not appear until 1968.


Car rental - Hertz Drivurself Corp/Yellow Drive-It-Yourself

The company owned a subsidiary, known as either Hertz 'Drivurself Corp' or 'Yellow Drive-It-Yourself' which was sold with Yellow Coach to General Motors and eventually purchased back by Hertz in 1953 with The Omnibus Corporation which was then renamed The Hertz Corporation the following year.


Models produced


Letter series (1923–1936)

Yellow started its model designation at the end of the alphabet and worked forward. Initially four types were offered: * Z type single-deck bus or coach * Z type double-deck bus * Y type coach * X type bus or coach. All were conventional front-engine design vehicles powered by Yellow
Knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...
I4 sleeve-valve gasoline engines, or a
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...
gas-electric hybrid unless noted otherwise. The Knight engine was connected to the rear wheels by a mechanical drive shaft. In gas-electric models, a gasoline engine in front supplied electric power to two large electric motors mounted on the rear axle.


700-series (1931–1939)

In 1931, Yellow Coach introduced its 700 series buses, featuring one of the first bus designs to mount the engine in the rear. Mounting the engine in the rear represented a significant innovation, reducing mechanical losses, noise, and weight of a long drive shaft and exhaust running between a front engine and the rear drive and tailpipe. Bus manufacturers in Germany and the United Kingdom would not perfect rear-engine models until the 1950s.} Customers did not always prefer rear-engined designs, noting that front engines were easier to access, and placed engine noise and vibration away from passengers and sometimes outside the coach body. Eventually, the 700 series included both front- and rear-engined models. In 1934, Dwight Austin, patent-holder on an innovative rear-drive system, was hired by Yellow Coach and soon developed new models in the 700-series with transverse engines and a “V” angle drive. The V-drive and other innovations introduced in the 700 series would become long-lasting standards: air conditioning, diesel engines, a flat front, a high passenger floor (with luggage beneath), and
unibody A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had ...
construction. The V-drive would be GM's standard configuration until the 1980s.


Best-selling transit buses: Models 718 and 728

Notable 700-series versions include models ''718'' and ''728'' which were developed for use as urban transit. Model 718 sold 426 units to large transit operators in New York and Los Angeles, becoming the most popular transit bus of the early 1930s. Later model ''728'' sold 1,189 units to transit operators across 9 variants produced in the late 1930s. Both were exclusively rear-engined.


Greyhound (intercity) buses: Models 719 and 743

For
Greyhound Lines Greyhound Lines, Inc. is an American operator of Intercity bus service, intercity bus services. Greyhound operates the largest intercity bus network in the United States, and also operates charter and Amtrak Thruway services, as well as interci ...
, an operator of
intercity bus service An intercity bus service (North American English) or intercity coach service (British English and Commonwealth English), also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public t ...
, Yellow Coach developed model ''719'' in 1936 which introduced the high floor, underfloor luggage storage, a flat front and
streamlined Streamlines, streaklines and pathlines are field lines in a fluid flow. They differ only when the flow changes with time, that is, when the flow is not steady flow, steady. Considering a velocity vector field in three-dimensional space in the f ...
styling. In 1937, model 719 was revised to become model ''743'' and introduced air conditioning and a diesel engine. Models 719 and 743 were both branded as the ''Super Coach'' by Greyhound, and sales were effectively limited to Greyhound and its affiliates. Greyhound Lines purchased all 1,256 units of model 743 produced between 1937 and 1939.


700 Series production details

All models are wide single-deck buses, except as noted.


1200-series (1938–1940)

The Model 1200 series was launched in 1938 with the re-designation of Model 739 as Model 1203 for Public Service Corporation. The 6-model series name ended when three were given new P-series names, and another was given a T-series name. By 1940, Model 1200 series designs were renamed into either the ''T''- or ''P''-series. The new model designations indicated type, fuel, propulsion (for transit) or customer (for parlor), seating capacity, and version number. (The first was -01, the second, -02, and so on.)


T-series (1940–1942)

All "T"-series models were urban
transit bus A transit bus (also big bus, commuter bus, city bus, town bus, urban bus, stage bus, public bus, public transit bus, or simply bus) is a type of bus used in public transport bus services. Several configurations are used, including low-floo ...
es. The model designation consisted of two or three letters followed by four numbers. These gave a basic description of the type of bus: All models were rear-engined except the 21xx and 24xx series.


P-series (1939–1944)

The "P" indicated that, as '' parlor coaches'', the P-series was primarily designed for the seated comfort of intercity bus passengers. All models are wide rear-engine parlor coaches.


GM and GMC

In 1944, General Motors completed its acquisition and merger of Yellow Coach. The T-Series and P-Series production and series numbering continued under the GM and GMC bus brands, along with other variants such as B-Series school buses and S-Series suburban buses. Yellow Coach designs would continue to be widely produced until 1959, when GM introduced its New Look models. The last Yellow Coach design ceased production in 1969.


See also

* GM Truck & Coach Division * GM "old-look" transit bus *
General Motors streetcar conspiracy The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to the convictions of General Motors (GM) and related companies that were involved in the monopolizing of the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines (NCL) and subsidiaries, as well as to ...


References


Bibliography

*Luke, William A. (2001). Yellow Coach Buses - 1923–1943 Photo Archive, Hudson, WI: Iconografix. *Luke, William A. & Metler, Linda L. (2004). ''Highway Buses of the 20th Century'', Hudson, WI: Iconografix. *Luke, William A. & Metler, Linda L. (2005). ''City Transit Buses of the 20th Century'', Hudson, WI: Iconografix. *McKane, John H. & Squier, Gerald L. (2006). ''Welcome Aboard the GM New Look Bus'', Hudson, WI: Iconografix. *Plachno, Larry (2002).
Greyhound Buses Through the Years - Part I
', Polo, Il: National Bus Trader Magazine, November, 2002 *Stauss, Ed (1988). ''The Bus World Encyclopedia of Buses'', Woodland Hills, CA: Stauss Publications.


External links



* ttp://www.omot.org/roster/GMOldLookList/index.html List of production figures for Yellow/GM "old-look" busesbr>Ohio Museum of Transportation
''omot.org'', retrieved on 2006-12-22

''coachbuilt.com'', retrieved on 2006-12-23
New York Public Library - General Motors Truck Company. Pontiac, Michigan
''nypl.org'', retrieved on 2018-03-28
New York Public Library - GM Coach Company 1936. Photographs - Specifications
''nypl.org'', retrieved on 2018-03-28

''coachinfo.com'', retrieved on 2006-12-23 {{General Motors brands Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1923 Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1943 Defunct bus manufacturers of the United States General Motors marques 1923 establishments in Illinois 1943 disestablishments in Michigan Trolleybus manufacturers