Founder John D. Hertz | Founded 1923 | |
The Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company (later Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Company, informally Yellow Coach) was an early manufacturer of passenger buses in the United States. It was founded in Chicago as a subsidiary of the Yellow Cab Company in 1923 by John D. Hertz. General Motors purchased a majority stake in 1925, changing its name to 'Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company. They then bought the company outright in 1943 merging it into their GM Truck Division to form GM Truck & Coach Division. During its twenty-year existence, Yellow Coach built transit buses, electric-powered trolley buses, and parlor coaches.
Contents
- History
- Car rental Hertz Drivurself CorpYellow Drive It Yourself
- Letter series 19231936
- 700 series 19341937
- T series 19401942
- P series 19391944
- References
Its car rental subsidiary (known both as 'Hertz Drivurself Corp' or '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
Yellow Coach Manufacturing Co was founded in 1923 as a subsidiary of the Yellow Cab Company.
G.J. Rackham, whose career had commenced with the London General Omnibus Company after the First World War, spent four years in the U.S. from 1922–1926 and recognised the advantage of low swept chassis frame for bus development while employed by Yellow Coach in Chicago. 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 as Chief Engineer and was responsible for the groundbreaking Titan and Tiger models.
General Motors purchased a majority stake in the company in 1925 and changed the name to the Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Company, with the factory located at Pontiac West Assembly in Pontiac, Michigan.
GM purchased the business outright in 1943 merging it into their GM Truck Division to form GM Truck & Coach Division.
Although GM continued with the Yellow Coach product line, the Yellow Coach badge gave way to the GM Coach or just GM nameplate in 1944. 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 eventual purchased back by Hertz in 1953 with The Omnibus Corporation which was the renamed The Hertz Corporation the following year.
Letter series (1923–1936)
Yellow started its model designation at the end of the alphabet and worked forward. Initially four types were offered:
All were conventional front-engine design vehicles powered by Yellow Knight I4 sleeve-valve gasoline engines, unless noted otherwise.
700-series (1934–1937)
All models are 96-inch (2.4 m) wide single-deck buses, except as noted.
T-series (1940–1942)
All models were transit buses. TD models were diesel powered; TDE used diesel-electric propulsion; TG models had gasoline engines. Note that Yellow Coach realigned all models to series 05 in 1941.
P-series (1939–1944)
All models are 96-inch (2.4 m) wide rear-engine parlor coaches.