Welcome to Leicester
Carriage Builders.
The Company was registered in 1903 and began
trading from the original premises in East Bond Street.
Later we moved to Marlow Road with offices, workshop and wood
mill with a blacksmiths shop at the rear (Wheel Wrights).
In 1948 a purpose built workshop with paint shop was built at
the side of the existing building and in 1961 the rear of this
workshop was extended to give more workspace. During the Suez
Crisis in the late 1950's, causing a chronic petrol shortage,
we kept production going by building various vehicle types on
trestles ready for the demand once the petrol rationing was removed.
In 1971 the original workshop, wood mill and stores were ravaged
by fire but the Fire Brigade managed to contain the fire and
keep it away from the general offices and protect records, files
etc. During the time after the fire in 1971, while rebuilding
and refurbishing was being carried out, Leicester Co-Op allowed
our employee's to use their sawmill facilities for cutting lists
for timber framing on various vehicles being constructed to maintain
production.
Eventually the purpose built spray shop built on the rear of
main workshop and original paint shop were removed to allow
more capacity for production. Of course, in the early days
of production most of the bodies were obviously horse drawn
for delivery of bread, milk etc. In the late 40's into
the 1950's mobile shops were built to provide services to the
new estates being built around large cities but with the introduction
of S.E.T (Selective Employment Tax) these mobile shops were
discontinued. Also shops and supermarkets began to make their
mark in outlying areas.
This meant the company had to diversify in to other areas of
production including mobile libraries, exhibition units, static
control, mobile control units and workshop units. A new
market area which has maintained a regular work flow has been
welfare vehicles for Social Services, Disabled Organisations,
and various public services providing these services.
Following on from welfare vehicles the company has gone into
the PSV (Passenger Carrying Vehicle) market with 26/29/30+ passenger
carrying buses. Another sphere of the company's production
has been Fire Brigade support vehicles, control units with hydraulic
expanding sides, Breathing apparatus support units, chemical
incident units, and salvage rescue units.
The company has also been accredited with the British Standards
Approval Certificate ISO 9002 which local authorities and other
organisations require company's to have achieved before their
Tenders will be accepted.
A recent acquisition is Concept Signs for all legal lettering,
vinyl's and logo requirements on vehicles, cutting out the need
for an outside sign company and allowing us to exercise even
more control over quality.
