Bodybuilding Extravaganza: The History of Coachbuilding Cars 

Hey, I was surprised you didn’t mention the Sultan of Brunei. That man single-handedly kept the coach building industry going in the 90’s. The list of one off cars he had commissioned is incredible and it seems most were done by the manufacturer but they were also send directly from production lines to coach builders. Definitely a fascinating part of automotive history in my opinion

I remember the affordable kits you could get to convert VW beetle's. They had many models to choose from.

A history of kit cars video would be cool

In Indonesia the regulation says that bus maker (Hino, Isuzu, etc) cannot build its own body, so the body must be made by local coach builder. The popular local coach builders are Laksana, Adi Putro, and New Armada. And back then the regulation also says that the passenger compartment (body behind the 1st row) of minivan must be made by local coach builder, thats why older minivans in Indonesia have a lot of different passenger compartment design made by those different coach builders.

Zagato/Touring is still pretty active on the coach building scene. Probably also one of the last true independent coach building companies to my knowledge.

Based on the most recent comments from Rolls-Royce, they want to continue this lost art of 30's style coachbuilding, and they have already done that with the Sweptail, Boattail and lately the Droptail. While these cars are built as unibody cars, they still seem to rebuild the base cars way beyond just a bodykit. Their price is sky high, but their art and style comes close to what was done in the golden era, with extreme shapes and design elements that are far away from practical or useful solutions. They simply exist to be beautiful - or at least an art piece - and that they are in my eyes. What do you think of them? Are they a valid continuation?

I always found it a bit amazing how they were able to build some of these cars (in general) back at a time when CAD was not even a thing, and everything was done by "hand" (designs were drawn by hand, machining for the most part was done by hand, with little to no automation in the way of layout or cutting/measuring like a modern CNC machine might do with its level of precision, etc).

H.J. Mulliner & Co. and Park Ward have always added a special touch to any Rolls Royce. Thanks for the video.

Thankfully some small firm called Runge out in the USA still keeps it alive. Makes stuff that looks like it’s right out of the 30s. Another potential form of custom coach building could be Veilside as the body work of their famous RX7 body kits and Toyota Supra body kits change the body work completely. Though they aren’t one of one you still need to be filthy rich for one. First you gotta drop 20-50 grand on an RX7 then another 15 for the veilside body.

Ed, there is a Japanese coachbuilder called Mitsuoka which uses some japanese cars as a base to make reto looking bodies, such as Corvette look from a Mazada MX5 or a retro SUV Wagon from a Toyota Rav4. One day Ill buy a 1st gent BMW 2 series and coachbuild it to a E30 retro look! Cheers!

Beautiful work, Ed! I would agree, coach built automobiles are in fact rolling art.

Delicious and creamy, as usual. Now, I want to see a segment from Ed on the world's most beautiful dashboards....or the evolution of dashboard design, which also seems to be a rapidly declining artform with the proliferation of LED screens in cars. A great dashboard should stroke its driver and passengers with a feeling of power and control. Also something rather mysterious in my mind anyway, is the relationship between dashboard controls and what goes on behind the dash as it interfaces with the mechanics and circuitry of the car. Good luck and keep on coachin'.

Have had this topic on my mind since a ‘39 Figoni et Falaschi Delahaye won best of show at the Detroit Concours a couple weeks ago. Also, never noticed until now that your intro music was the 93 KHJ theme. Thank you for making this excellent video.

Im a little bit of a coachbuilder myself

Great video. Would the Dune Buggy created in the 60s be considered a custom body. I think that there could be a good market for custom body panels, and convertible kits for common models. I can see the demand for unique models.

0:22 Ohh, interesting. I was playing L.A Noire recently and I found this car in the game, I love how all the cars there are real cars, and most of them are obscure cars that few people know about.

Enjoyed the video. Cars in general are much more complex and difficult to break down to essential components in order to re-body.

Ed, you are knowledgeable & prolific in the number of series installments. Always enjoy your stuff. HOWEVER, you could have touched on how 20s Art Deco, and design of Airplanes, Ships, & Trains helped evolve auto design into more flowing design lines. Also hand pounding of steel or aluminum is so slow & expensive. Boxy MORGAN still does it ($$$$$). Most production line welding now is robot spot (pinch) welding. Hardly any major bolt on body components. If sold in America, there are the 30 mph crash requirements. Most production vehicles are front wheel drive (or AWD). That said, FWD only vehicles are really not that raw performance oriented. And let's face it, this is the sunset of automobile styling & trim. Most of it looks the same (gag me with a spoon). Manufacturers dont take chances anymore. Remember the Alamo, I mean the Edsel. Asset class vehicles are fast, or have luxurious interiors, and are expensive. They are NOT how little Geppetto made it. Rolls does have a headliner showing the star pattern at the owner's birth. Flying Cadillac Allante car bodies from Italy was a business disaster for GM. I didnt think it looked that great anyway.

Thank you Ed for all your research, knowledge and video skills to produce and post these fabulous videos. Thank you, thank you!

Edward, take a look at "the Beast", the USA presidential car, built on a truck chassis. Another excellent video, thank You !

Another excellent example could have been Holden, as it evolved from being a saddle maker, to a coach builder to a subsidiary manufacturer

Missed my Ed's reviews!! More brilliant content more often please! Thanks for another outstanding video 🙂

These vehicles are definitely art. Pleasing to the eye and elegant to a level never seen before or since.

I used to work with a guy in the 70s, he was a coach builder at Vanden Plas.

THANK YOU, ED!!! Another great video! 🐰

that silver on on the turntable is incredible

interesting, and relevant, video. I live in Vysoké Mýto, Czech Republic, and there was a guy here named Sodomka, who built carriages and wagons until the 1920s, when, as you explained, he switched over to making customised bodies for car companies. In the 1920s and 1930s, Sodomka was a well known name among auto enthusiasts throughout Europe, winning awards at various concours d'elegance. They also made customised utility vehicles like buses and ambulances. After the war, when the Communists took over, they decided that they should focus on vehicles for the masses, so Carrosserie Sodomka became Karosa, building buses. Today they are part of Iveco, still building the best buses in the world!

One problem for modern coachbuilding of cars is the need to meet crash standards and in particular in Europe, pedestrian safety standards/rules. Still, those 1920's-1930's coachbuilt bodied cars like you showed are works of art, indeed 'erotic' in some cases. I think one of your video subjects should be the car based pick-up or utility vehicles mainly popular in North American (Chevy El Camino) and Australia (Holden and Ford 'utes'). The history of the USA Pickup truck would be a good candidate for a video.

Ed, you never cease to amaze! Aerodynamic pornography...I'm addicted! Episode 56 is one of my favorites. Thought you might include the Phantom Corsair, but maybe it doesn't quite fit. Keep up the good work. Dave

those skateboard platforms could give coachbuilders the chance to make what the gm hywire would have been

5:12 Someone hand back those tunnel of love rides !!! 🤣

I can only agree, these 1930's custom built cars are absolutely beautiful, it's literally an art on wheels.

The way you pronounce jonkheeren was the give away ive been waiting for

Best video yet, man...and we have similar tastes. I find this era and type of build makes the most beautiful cars ever built.

Glad you covered this topic! One of the best parts of automotive history.

I remember watching Looney Tunes as a kid and seeing car designs like these, thinking they were more like moving sculptures than transportation... There are some beautiful pieces out there--thank you for highlighting this topic; great upload!

Cool sh!t. I had a '63 Cad hearse by S &S/H & I Love the coach built part of auto history. Great job!

You didn't mention the Duesenberg Model J in which a rolling chassis was purchased and a body was designed by a number of coachbuilders like Murphy, LeBaron and Rollston. Also, Budd designed a truck cab that was used by both Ford and Mack, which could lead to some confusion. Hopefully, you will create a sequel to this fine video.

this was my favourite episode

I think the most modern example is the Giulia SWB Zagato. Built from a regular Giulia Quadrifoglio, it has a shorter wheel base and i can only imagine how much work it required, involving directly the car maker for the most delicate chassis modifications. But the result is outstanding!

I went back to a car I had back in highschool in the 80's. It was a 1979 Lincoln Mark V Cartier. But i upgraded (funny) to a 1979 Lincoln Mark V Bill Blass. Best car I ever had and the best part besides how smooth it rides is its not made of plastic.

Great video as usual. For the page analogy, I would have said the 'body on frame' was like writing in pencil the using a rubber (yes, that what we call them in the UK) to erase the pencil and then rewrite. The 'unibody' is like the page written in pen then having to us Tippex all the page.

"aerodynamic pornography" Excellent 👌

Those cars are indeed beautiful. Owning a whole warehouse full of them is obscene.

A distant relative of the coach built cars that also has come and gone, the "kit" car or dune buggy's of the 60's and 70's that used the VW type 1 platform. While not the elegant hand made creations of the 30's they, at their ridiculous peak, were nearly limitless in imagination and execution.

There is a long standing belief that you really haven't restored a vehicle until you have restored a coach built vehicle. And I certainly agree with this. Everything is bespoke. Every part is unique and must be hand finished to fit or hand made. My Daimler Special Sports was built by Barker. The panels on one Special Sports were all numbered and they are not readily transferable across vehicles because they can be very different because the hand formed timber frame structure can be very different. Trimming and finishing takes for ever because it's so much more complex to do properly. But the cars are the prettiest Daimlers ever made. They cost sometimes 10 times a common car but they were an expression of what the finest crafts people could create.

Ed, your term " aerodynamic pornography " is brilliant!!! Keep these videos coming...

I love the way this dude says “coach build”… sort of rolls the two words together smoothly, like - well - you’re cruising in a well-built coach. 😎

You have a great channel and I really appreciate your programs. You also have a good voice for naration, very easy to listen to.

Thank you Ed. You are never set me up. You documentary are always superb!!!

Beautiful and informative as always. But I think you conflate streamlined, which is an esthetic that can be as capricious as it wants to be, and aerodynamic which is designing to a physical constraint. I very much doubt that many of those 30'ies bespoke vehicles really were particularly aerodynamic. Maybe this could be a topic for a future video?

Coachbuilding in Indonesia has always been associated with commercial cars. The industry reached its peak in 1980s-early 1990s where MPVs at that time had coachbuilt bodies. However, it had its drawbacks, namely they're a hassle to repair and they use quite a large amount of filler/putty. By the time 1990s rolled around, most MPVs have original, manufacturer-built bodies, and the coachbuilders settle themselves on commissioning bodies for buses and share taxis. They do experience a form of resurgence, though, with the increased demand of bus travels, both in the forms of bus rapid transits in some major cities or premium, full-service intercity buses.

The last coach built cars that were built in significant quantities were probably hearses (I know; that's another video), but that took a nosedive when Cadillac stopped selling their hearse/ambulance "commercial chassis" in 1979, and got hit further when Cadillac stopped building body-on-frame sedans for 1997 and when Lincoln stopped in 2011. Yet, chop shops continue to cut open regular sedans and turn them into fairly respectable hearses and stretched limos.

Great video, with one possible omission. In the 50s and 60s, the big three made a habit of regularly cranking out concept cars to wow people. I believe that most of those were coach built, and they were very high profile, even if most didn't know that Chrysler or whoever didn't actually do the body work.

Bravo! 👏

I used to work on classic Ferraris from the 50s, 60s, and 70s that would go to Pebble Beach Concourse shows. These were still coach built cars and it was very frustrating to work on these. Nothing from side to side was the same. A door on the left could be an inch or two longer than the right. The door sill could be higher. The door jamb trim could be completely different side to side. One tail light could be an inch higher or lower than the other side. Etc. It really made fixing them difficult, especially when they'd been crashed. And when you do body and paint work it was a constant struggle on whether you fix things so they look right, or leave it uneven like the factory did.

Several limited production coachbuilders exist, some focus on reproductions of earlier cars, some build entirely new designs. Have a look at some of the race shops, and hotrod shops as well.

In the 70-80s, there were some companies like Clenet and Excalibur that were built on the chassis of American cars. They were very tacky designs, not like those elegant 30s designs. I think even the last Avanti was just a rebodied car from GM. One design I really liked was the Volga V-12, which apparently was fitted to a BMW M6.

The Pininfarina Benz was a unique body, although it looks like the later SEC

There are hearse variants of the mercedes w124 that got build in greece who look so beautiful that they live rent free in my mind. I Love searching up different cars who got customized by coachbuilders... The bertone freeclimber is another example... A anchient Daihatsu offroader who got turned into a luxurious vehicle, That's simply crazy to think about.

Holy crap! That swan car! 😂🤣😂

In 1995 the Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts held an exposition featuring cars, some production models and custom built. A successful event but arts enthusiasts criticized the decision to put cars in an art museum.

Great day! A new video!!!

Yes! This is the video I’ve been waiting for! 😁

6:48 That is the stereotypical 30's cartoon vehicle haha

Ed, your presentations are marvelously magnificent! I really enjoyed this one. Thank you,

I was surprised affordablw VW frame kit cars weren't mentioned since that brought the cost down to something the average Joe could afford if he was willing to do himself, and the kit cars were largely a diy kit for VW frames, falls into its own category... probably there were more custom-built (morelike pseudo custom) cars using this method in the last 50 years than any other method, and I suspect the kits were made by traditional coach builders. There's enough info there with all the different kits, to have its own video. I'm hoping that was Ed's plan and we can see that happen, but this was an awesome video.

“Coachbuilding” existed in countries with closed borders. Like Brazil or Argentina in the 70s. Gurgel and other brazilian companies developed fiberglass cars on top of existing VW Beetle or Gol bodies. Sedan versions of Ford F150s were made there too. And Argentinian designers such as Tulio Crespi and Elvio Winograd created their own versions of existing IKA Torinos (Rambler Americans with Pininfarina designed bodies). You should definetly make an episode in south american car industry. IKA is a great example of an american company ran by europeans (Renault) that created the car that beat the 84hs of nurburgring. And VW do Brasil had so much freedom from the germans that created amazing cars that were sold even in Europe itself.

most excellent video - thanks. can't wait for the next one.

This video would've been better if unibody cars with a spaceframe chassis got mentioned. The pontiac fiero comes to mind most famously, other examples are the smart Roadster or the alot of the cars made by Saturn. These cars are really well suited for kitcar bodykits and such stuff... This is absolutely comparable with coachbuilding.

Thanks for the good work as usual Ed ! Big Ups from Cape Town !

No matter how you want to debate it, Art Deco is the best styling that will ever be.

I had the 1938 Talbot logo French car from Hot Wheels so beautiful waaayyy back in 1988

The one at 4:24 is absolutely stunning!

"Aerodynamic Pornography!" Ed, For a Nederlander, you sure have a way with the English language!

Chip Foose (and probably others) comes close to modding fairly recent cars into "coach-built" cars. Not all of Chip's creations are my cup o' tea, but ya gotta admit that many are pretty dang impressive! Cheers!

I always wondered why my 78 Cutlass had “Body by Fisher” on the door sills.

In the late Teens and early 20s, advances in steel making, shaping, and stamping led high-volume car makers away from wooden-framed body construction (the specialty of the Coachbuilders), and towards all-steel bodies. This was a first step in turning automotive Coachbuilding into a niche industry.

Thanks sir

Alfa Romeo has a couple cars now days that can have custom coach built bodies from Pinafarinna, one of them being the new Gulieta, the other is their 2 seater sport car. Top Gear did a whole episode about them back around 2017 or 2018

I believe the first unibody car in mass production was the Citroen Traction Avant IN 1934

Hey Ed, thanks for sharing another interesting & informative video!!! 👍👍🙂

My father worked for a coachbuilder called James Young. He had a lovely set of frech curves in the attic, the very finest wood, probably used to design some lovely bodies. Poor bastard ended up at Fords drawing the back lights for lorries on a computer.

You forgot the kit car craze of the 70-80s that used full vw and other frames to put a large variety of bodies on them. You should take a deep dive into that… as it still is alive today.

Great vid again

Reminds me, you can buy stripped truck chasis brand new from Ford. You could theorically go full coachbuilder with them as an individual, if registration wasnt a potential issue.

While you are correct that most of the truly remarkable coach built cars are from the '30s, they're also nearly all French. They were flamboyant almost to excess, and I agree with your assessment of the aesthetics. The Italians, I think, have the upper had as they put their flamboyant designs into regular production!

Good Episode !

I need to mention LINEAGE, Harley Earl, Head of GM Design in the 40s & 50s, his father was a coach builder. Others but they escape me now.

"Handbuilt means the doors will fall off" ...to be fair, Jeremy *was* referring to a British car of the 60s/70s.

Very good Ed. Quite education. It was well stated and informative. I thought about Fisher Body from GM and you showed them. I thought abiut Fleetwood which became a Cadillac. I recall the other brands you showed. Thank you for making an interesting and informative video.

and yet no mention of the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante and its custom bodywork made by Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera!

One thing to consider is that nowadays cars need to match rigorous safety standards and crash tests in many countries, single unit custom cars are not an exception. So not only would a customer need to pay for his car, he should also pay for all the tests and the cars used and destroyed in them.

YAY! A new E.A.R video!!!! Today is a good day!!!!

Looking for one particular US coach builder I noticed the Wikipedia listing USA coachbuilders has more companies than expected. And not even all limo builders. I suspect other regions have listings as well. And ofcourse the design companies building one of concept and showcars And as always I am typing while watching 🤣 Some coachbuilders just get a drivetrain and produce the rest themselves. And sure there are far fewer now, but the craft is still alive.

My favorite is the Delage V12 Aerodynamique by Labordette

438 The round door Rolls Royce has quite a history, at one point it was languishing in a wrecking yard.

Great video Ed! I do have a question though. You classify the coach builders into four categories. This will work for most of them. However, I don't see how Mitsuoka fits in these categories. Maybe they deserve the fifth category where they just continue to do their own thing

I didn’t know coaches built cars.

Great content man. Cheers from Canada