Leo Gillig Company History

It all began in 1898, as a man named Jacob Gillig came from New York. His mission - to start a horse-drawn carriage repair facility. He repaired, detailed, and built the finest of the horse-drawn carriages, including those owned by wealthy San Fransicans such as San Francisco pioneers Mark Hopkins and James Flood. He soon became the best in the business, and had soon became known as the "best coach builder in the west."
However, within ten years, catastrophe would strike. In 1906, San Francisco had experienced the largest earthquake in the area in modern history. Within five hours, much of San Francisco was ablaze. One of the casualties was Jacob Gillig's facility for which he had spent the last eight years working so hard to make successful.

In 1914, more than six years after the original shop had burned down, Jacob's son Leo Gillig opens a new shop on Larkin Street in San Francisco, and named it the "Leo Gillig Automotive Works." He soon had the best business in town, and had obtained nearly as much success as his father did in the carriage business. Soon, he becomes so successful, that he hires his brother, Chester Gillig to work as partner, and soon, Leo Gillig Automotive Works soon became "Gillig Bros."

At first, the company was strictly building automobiles, and heavy duty trucks. Soon after the change, the company built a new three story operating facility on Post and Franklin Streets. One of the first products offered by Gillig Bros was a patented "California Top," invented and patented by Chester Gillig. This consisted of a hard top with sliding windows. Hundreds of the new "California Top" vehicles were sold within the next few years. In 1927, Gillig began a new venture, called "Gillig Marinecraft" in which they manufactured pleasurecraft boats. Within a few years, hundreds had sold, and Gillig Bros had gone into a new venture.

in 1928, Gillig began the construction of heavy duty trucks, similar to the very first Kenworth. And in 1929, they built their very first bus. And in 1932, Gilig had built their very first school bus. Within the next few years, Gillig had seen a sharp drop in sales for their other products, so Gillig had converted their manufacturing plant to handle the construction of the school bus line. In 1937, the San Francisco plant became obsolete, and the decision was made to move the plant. Hayward was selected the new home for Gillig, and the most modern school bus manufacturing facility was completed at the time. In the same year, Gillig had built their very first Transit Style school bus, and in 1938, Gillig buys out the firm of Patchett and Carstenses, based in Newman, California. In 1940, Gillig began experementing with engine locations, and Gillig's very first midship engined transit was born. It was powered by Hall Scott gasoline engines, and was unusual because the engines were placed on their sides, instead of vertically. The chassis for this new model line was supplied by Fabco, and Gillig had of course built the bodies.

In 1941, Gillig became a war casualty, and all of the school bus manufacturing was put on hiatus. Gillig went back to making heavy duty trucks, and troop transports, and in 1946, Gillig returned to commercial manufacturing.

In 1946, Gillig had returned to commercial manufacturing, and the first thing to come back into production were the Hall Scott midship engined transit style school buses. In 1948, the very first rear engined transits were built, powered by Hall Scott 450s. Soon after, Gillig went back to midship engine transits, and in 1950, the very first Hall Scot 504s and 590s were built. The Hall Scott 590 at the time was the largest inline six cylinder engine ever produced for commercial school bus use. Production at this time were 70 transit style, and 100 conventional bus bodies. In 1953, Leo Gillig had passed away, and soon after, Chester had retired from business. Stanley Marx, an salesman, was named as new CEO of the newly formed "corporation".

Four years passed with no noticeable change except slight refinements in exterior design, and in 1957, Gillig purchases all of the assets of the now-defunct Pacific Bus line from Kenworth Truck Company, based in Seattle, Washington. In 1959, some of the designs, and manufacturing methods, were introduced into the Gillig Bros. lineup of school buses. The most noticeable change to the Gillig Transit style bus was the shape of the Pacific school bus, and the high volume radiator vent intake in the left rear corner of the bus' roof.

By 1965, Gillig had become a well-established school bus manufacturer, with over 70% of all school bus sales in Northern California being Gilligs. And, the product line had become well established as well. And a noticeable change in the sales pattern of the transits and conventionals were noticed. Now, production was up to 175 transits. Out of those, 90% were diesel powered, and 50% were cxonventionals. 1965 also marked a very important milestone in both the history of Gillig Bros. but the entire school bus industry. Gillig, in this year, had pioneered the very first rear engined diesel school bus. Powered by a very powerful Cummins C-Series diesel the C-Series Gilligs became an industry leader for transit style school buses, and had set the tone for others to follow. And also at this time, Gillig had formed a very firm product lineup, consisting of the Ford 500 Series Gilligs, the Cummins C-Series with the Cummins C-160/180/190, and the Caterpillar 1160 V-8 diesel. The Caterpillar diesel engine became the engine of choice, and made the rear engined Gilligs the most popular rear engine transit on the west coast. In 1967, Gillig returned to the midship transits, and the very first engine for the new midships was a massive 220HP Cummins engine that had 743 cubic inches of displacement. The Cummins NHH220 though was soon eclipsed by the newer, larger Cummins NHH250. This engine was by far the largest engine ever produced for school bus use. Registering at 855 cubic inches, this engine had power written all over it. In 1967, Gilig had built the largest passenger capacity bus ever produced. These buses were set up on a tandem axle chassis, and had a passenger capacity rating of 97 fully loaded. This bus stood foutry-one feet in length, and some were equipped with the CAT3208, but most were equipped with the Cummins NHH220 or the 250. Options included at the tiime of a ten speed Fuller Roadranger transmission with the tandem Gilligs. The unusual thing about the Gillig tandem was that BOTH rear axles were live, no dummy axles were ever used. The product line at the time included the C Series, Ford 600 series, and the 743D, 855D, 636D, and the 318D series. The 318D series came from a Detroit Diesel power setup for the rear engined applications.

The Next year saw two changes to Gillig Bros. One of the changes were in management. Stan Marx left, leaving after 41 years with the company starting as salesman and leaving as Vice President. The next change was in ownership of Gillig. Herrick-Pacific Steel, a large steel manufacturing company located in Hayward, purchased Gillig Bros. This, in turn, set off a set of smaller changes. One change was the name of the company. The name "Bros." was dropped and replaced with "corporation and in later years this change was reflected on the company logo. Even on the bus emblems, the word "Bros." was dropped. Another change made was to the powerplant lineup. In 1974, the last gas powered coach left the Gillig plant. The figures changed too, with transit coach production leading the way at 90 percent. the remaining percent went to custom-built and conventional bus bodies. The plant is now at the capacity of producing one complete bus per day.

The following year, 1975, saw the addition of the Cummins VTF555 V-8 diesel to its powerplant options. and the insides of the coaches' design received a facelift. For some 15 or so years, the dashboard in the Gillig remained unchanged. At the unveiling of the 1975-1976 lineup, an all new dashboard was revealed. Instead of an all-metal dashboard, a fiberglass molded dashboard was revealed and it signalled a change in driver ergonomics. For instance, the old switchpanels used to be to the left of the steering column, underneath the steering wheel. The new design placed all of the switches on one panel under the driver's side window (under the side window) and all of the gauges were placed so that the driver could easily see them. The dashboard was given a color option too. Buyers could choose between the standard pastel green or a gloss black, and the look was to simulate vinyl padding. There also was a change to the exterior lighting. As various states passed new transportation laws, the need for a more advanced warning system became apparent. So, to achieve this, Gillig introduced the first coach with the eight-flasher system. This meant that the driver could push a button activating a set of amber warning lights placed just inside of the red stop lights. This allowed drivers to also warn following and approaching motorists that the bus was about to stop for pickup or dropoff. The first few states to require this kind of lighting were Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Then, in 1977, the government passed new legislation mandating that all school buses be safer. To achieve this, Gillig and Crown Coach started redesigning their buses. While there was no exterior design change, the biggest change of all was the passenger seating. The metal backed seats that the baby boom generation grew up with was redesigned into a high-backed heavily padded seat. This seating design is called compartmentalization, and soon, the rest of the bus manufacturing community followed suit. Another change in the interior design was the omission of the steel column rails at the front of the bus. In 1979, Gillig began redesigning the exterior of their buses also, and one major change was the side windows. Having seen the result of what that half window meant for safety, they began including this design in their buses. To make this design more appealing, they added black trim around the windows and a few models had even added window tinting. The black dash that was optional on earlier models became standard. Then, slowly in late 1979 and into early 1980, Gillig began phasing out school bus production. 1982 marked the last year that the classic "Gillig Transit Coach" was manufactured. For one year, Gillig had went without one school bus order, and then in 1983, Gillig had produced their very first Phantom-style school bus. Based on the design of the now 2-year-old Phantom Transit lineup, the Phantom School bus sold quite well, but after ten years, sales started to slide, as there wasn't a need for such HD type buses - primarily because existing Gillig buses still had 30 years of service life left. In 1993, the last Phantom school bus rolled off the Hayward assembly line, and marked the last year that Gillig made school buses altogether.

Gillig now makes transit buses for urban applications. The unchanged-since-1982 Phantom line is still the most popular transit style urban transit on the road. And since 2000, Gillig is offering the "Advantage," a low-floor bus. The Advantage has many other "advantages" over other types of transit buses. For instance, one boarding the bus needs not to walk up the steps, as there isn't any steps to walk on. The floor is level with most street side curbs, thus making accessibility second to none in the industry. And it also has the lowest floor in the industry.

The future is bright for Gillig Corp. and an online effort is persuading them to return to school bus manufacturing.