New Flyer history

New Flyer was founded in 1930 in Winnipeg by John Coval as Western Auto and Truck Body Works. It wasn't until 1937 that the company began manufacturing complete buses.

The company branched out from its production of trucks and introduced the “Western Flyer”, its first motor coach in 1941.

1945 The company's name is changed to Western Flyer Coach Ltd.

In 1946 Western Flyer produced a pair of sightseeing buses for Salt Lake City, Utah, believed to be the first time a Canadian bus maker had made a sale in the United States.

The spacious coaches were a hit with inter-city bus companies and, by 1948, the company had been renamed “Western Flyer Coach” in recognition of its new focus.

The company introduced 40-passenger buses in 1949: the C-40, intended for city use, and the T-40, intended for transit companies.

The company would go on to build the “Canuck” highway coach in 1953, which proved very successful.

The company opened a new plant in Fort Garry, Manitoba and looked to expand into the city transit market starting in 1964.

In spite of competition from General Motors (now Nova) and Ontario Bus Industries (now Orion), representatives of New Flyer have been operating on the TTC’s bus and trolley bus routes since 1968.

It was bought by Detroit businessman Thomas J. Ault in 1970 but just a year later required Canadian government intervention to stay business.

The company was bought out by the Manitoba government in 1971 and renamed Flyer Industries Limited.

The Series 800, available as a diesel bus or trolley coach, was introduced in 1973.

In 1988 the company introduced low-floor technology, pioneered by its Dutch cousin company, to North America.

The first of these buses were delivered in 1989.

The first 60-foot articulated bus was delivery to San Mateo County in California in 1990.

The first of these vehicles came on sale in 1991, and low floor vehicles soon became a standard across North America.

In 1993 New Flyer became the first bus manufacturer to implement programmable logic controlled (PLG) multiplexing on all of its bus models.

A new assembly plant was opened in St Cloud, Minnesota in June 1999.

In February 2001 the company furloughed a quarter of its workforce in the Winnipeg plant, about 440 people, because, according to management, it was making bodies faster than the assembly plants could use them.

In 2002, it secured an order to build 218 articulated hybrid buses for Seattle, Washington.

He wasted little time proving his point by implementing a turnaround plan developed with KPS. By the summer of 2003, workers were being recalled, and in October of that year New Flyer added CAD $425 million worth of orders from Seattle and Vancouver to complete a quick return to health.

2004 The company is sold to Harvest Partners Inc.

They then re-entered the electric trolley bus business, supplying new models for Vancouver starting in 2005 to replace the city’s aging fleet.

Introduced in 2008, this distinctive vehicle was designed to reduce its weight by 10% over previous models.

In 2012, New Flyer announced it had built a prototype for an all-electric, battery-powered version of the Xcelsior, for emissions-free operation on a city’s heaviest-travelled bus routes.