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Official Site: elcb.co.uk
Wikipedia: East Lancashire Coachbuilders Page Sections History Article Index |
History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's East Lancashire Coachbuilders page on 1 September 2019, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
East Lancashire Coachbuilders Limited was a manufacturer of bus bodies and carriages founded in 1934 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England.
In 1994 the company expanded into new premises and commenced a programme of development that resulted in a range of single and double deck buses which was the primary source of income for the company.
On 17 August 2007, the company went into administration, but was saved and bought out by the Darwen Group the next day. It is thought that the problem was a direct consequence of changing to the Euro IV chassis, with a shortage of Scania chassis being a factor. After the purchase, the Darwen Group rebranded the company as Darwen East Lancs.
In 2008, Jamesstan Investments, an investment company controlled by the Darwen Group, purchased another bus manufacturer, Optare. Later, in June 2008, a reverse takeover was performed, with the Darwen name disappearing in favour of Optare's. This brings East Lancs name into the Optare Group, with an expanded range of vehicles.
Production of all the original East Lancs bodies ceased by 2011, and the premises in Blackburn closed in 2012.