Coachbuilder

A coachbuilder is a person or organization that manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.

The trade of producing coachwork began with bodies for horse-drawn vehicles. Today it includes custom automobiles, buses, motor coaches, and railway carriages.

The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs. A vehicle body constructed by a coachbuilder may be called a "coachbuilt body" (British English) or "custom body" (American English), and is not to be confused with a custom car.

Prior to the popularization of unibody construction in the 1960s, many independent coachbuilders built bodies on rolling chassis provided by luxury or sports car manufacturers, both for individual customers and makers themselves. Marques such as Ferrari originally outsourced all bodywork to coachbuilders such as Pininfarina and Scaglietti.

Today, the coach building trade has largely shifted to making bodies for short runs of specialized commercial vehicles such as motor coaches and luxury recreational vehicles. A 'conversion' is built inside an existing vehicle body.

Many renowned automotive coachbuilders have been based in Italy (carrozzeria) and France (carrosserie).

Construction of specialty vehicle bodies has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily fragile, but satisfactory wheels by a separate trade, a wheelwright, held together by iron or steel tyres, was always most critical.
From about AD 1000 rough vehicle construction was carried out by a wainwright, a wagon-builder. Later names include cartwright (a carpenter who makes carts, from 1587); coachwright; and coachmaker (from 1599). Subtrades include wheelwright, coachjoiner, etc. The word coachbuilder first appeared in 1794.

A British trade association the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers was incorporated in 1630. Some British coachmaking firms operating in the 20th century were established even earlier. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards. Brewster, the oldest in the U.S., was formed in 1810.