Park Royal Vehicles

Park Royal Vehicles was one of Britain's leading coachbuilders and bus manufacturers, based at Park Royal, Abbey Road, in west London. Its origins trace to 1889, and the business was formally registered as Park Royal Coach Works Limited on 12 April 1930. The company built single and double deck omnibus bodies, trolleybuses and coach bodies for operators across the United Kingdom, and it built the bodywork for the AEC Routemaster, one of the best known London buses of the twentieth century. Park Royal also produced railcars and railbuses, and during the Second World War it turned part of its production to aircraft components, including parts for the Handley Page Halifax bomber, as well as Green Goddess fire engines for wartime and civil defense service. Its subsidiary Charles H. Roe, based in Leeds, extended the group's bus and coach bodywork into the north of England. Labour problems and slowing production led to the company's closure in July 1980.