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Wrightbus is a Northern Irish bus manufacturer and a pioneer of the low-floor bus. The company was established in 1946 by Robert Wright and was later run by his son William Wright, until it was acquired in 2019 by British businessman Jo Bamford.
Other Wright products introduced in this period included two Mercedes-Benz-based products, the O405 based Cityranger and the OH1416 based Urbanranger. The latter was launched around the time bus operators in the UK began switching to low floor chassis and consequently only attracted a handful of orders. However, Wright had become well established in the bus bodybuilding sector by then, and was able to exploit the opportunities the low-floor revolution would offer it from the mid-1990s onwards.
The Axcess-Ultralow was introduced in 1995 and offered on the Scania L113 chassis. At this time it was selling in reasonable numbers to UK bus operators, but unlike other bodybuilders who could only offer the L113 with step-entrance bodies, Wright modified it by removing the middle section of the chassis and thus offered UK bus operators one of the first mainstream low-floor body/chassis combinations. A major customer for the Axcess-Ultralow was FirstGroup, taking approximately 240.
Next up was the Volvo B10L based Wright Liberator introduced at the end of 1995: National Express ordered 120 in 1997. This would be followed by the Wright Renown body built on the Volvo B10BLE chassis, which went on to become the standard bus of the Blazefield Group.
After production of the Volvo B10BLE ceased in 2001, Wrightbus developed the Wright Eclipse body for the new Volvo B7L chassis, which, due to its vertical rear engine, was not popular with many operators. Nevertheless, Wright did not lose custom and many operators such as Ulsterbus switched to the incline-engined Scania L94UB, on a similar Wright Solar body. Another bodywork which resembles the Solar/Wright Eclipse range is the Wright Meridian, which was bodied on the MAN A22 full low-floor single-deck chassis.
Wrightbus' first double-decker bus, the Wright Eclipse Gemini, was launched on the Volvo B7TL chassis in 2001. A similarly-styled bus entered service with Arriva London in August 2003 as the Wright Pulsar Gemini on the VDL DB250 chassis. Large operators of Gemini-bodied Wrightbus buses included Arriva, the FirstGroup, the Go-Ahead Group, Lothian Buses and National Express' West Midlands, Coventry and Dundee operations.
In November 2004, Wrightbus announced it was returning to producing bodies for minibuses at the Coach & Bus 2004 expo with the launch of the low-floor Satellite body, which was to be built on the Iveco Daily-based Irisbus LoGo 65C17 chassis cowl. The body, capable of seating between 24 and 28 passengers with room for a wheelchair through the application of a drop-centre frame, was expected to be launched in mid-2005. In July 2005, however, Wrightbus announced that the Wright Satellite had been place on 'indefinite hold' in favour of further developing the Wright StreetCar and other Euro IV products.
Since May 2013, Wrightbus began building its own chassis, the StreetLite single-decker and StreetDeck double decker. However, they still continue to produce bodywork for the Volvo B5TL, Volvo B5LH and Volvo B8RLE.
In 2016, the Wright SRM was introduced on the Volvo B5LH. It was an adaptation of the New Routemaster body onto Volvo's hybrid chassis at a shorter length of , with only six sold to RATP Dev subsidiary London United that same year.
During the six years prior to Wrightbus going into administration, it was reported that Jeff Wright, the owner of the company, had donated £15 million to a church he had founded in 2007, Green Pastures Church. This led to protests on 29 September 2019 which were joined by many of the company's former workers, including members of the Wright family.
On 11 October 2019, a deal was reached in principle between Jo Bamford (son of Anthony Bamford, chairman of the construction equipment manufacturer JCB) and the Wright family for the land used by the factory, a sticking point in negotiations to sell the firm. A deal was made with the administrators eleven days later, with Jo Bamford's Bamford Bus Company concluding a takeover of the company.
Since the takeover of Wrightbus, Bamford has been committed to creating a market for hydrogen buses with a reconfigured StreetDeck that is powered by hydrogen. In 2020, Bamford said he planned to build 3,000 buses of this type by 2024.
Wrightbus announced in February 2023 that it was planning to build a green hydrogen production facility on its Ballymena site in partnership with Hygen Energy, capable of producing enough hydrogen to fuel up to 300 buses per day with the option to triple its production in line with future demand for the fuel. Funding for the construction of at the facility was secured from the first round of the UK government's £37.9 million UK Net Zero Hydrogen Fund in March 2023. Wrightbus was later granted up to £534,000 in funding from the UK government-sponsored Advanced Propulsion Centre fund in September 2023 to develop a driveline based on the GB Kite Hydroliner for a hydrogen fuel cell-powered coach, which will be intended as a functional "technology demonstrator". A driveline demonstrator capable of a range of was unveiled in September 2024 at the Cenex net-zero mobility show in Bedfordshire, with development work on the coach set to complete by 2025 before it takes to the road during 2026.
In June 2024, Wrightbus announced it had formed NewPower, a new subsidiary headquartered at the former Arrival Bus factory in Bicester, Oxfordshire, aimed at facilitating battery electric repowering of existing diesel Wrightbus buses, such as the StreetDeck, Gemini 2 and New Routemaster. At a cost of over £200,000, the repowering process involves the removal of the diesel drivetrain and ensuing fitment of a Voith Electric Drive System coupled with NMC battery packs and a Grayson HVAC system, all capable of being performed over a period of three weeks at a factory capacity of six buses being converted at one time. Wrightbus also announced it had opened a bus refurbishment business a short distance from the NewPower facility, which is aimed to complete external and internal refurbishments of buses following their battery electric conversions.
In 2011, Wrightbus International was established. A contract was awarded by SBS Transit for 565 Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 bodied Volvo B9TLs and delivered since January 2013 till June 2015. In November 2012, a contract for 50 Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 bodied Volvos was awarded by Kowloon Motor Bus. These were sent in knock-down kit (CKD) form from Northern Ireland and assembled in China and followed by another 85, including two 12.8-metre-long demonstrators. In September 2013, Wrightbus entered into a partnership with Daimler AG to manufacture buses in Chennai, India.
In March 2014, orders were secured from Hong Kong operators Citybus and New World First Bus for 51 bodies on Volvo B9TL chassis. These were sent in CKD form from Northern Ireland and assembled in Malaysia. In July 2014, SBS Transit ordered a further 415 Eclipse Gemini 2-bodied Volvo B9TLs which will be delivered from August 2015 till 2017, increasing the total to 1,430 by 2017. A single Eclipse Gemini 3-bodied Volvo B8L prototype was exported to Singapore for trial with SBS Transit but was subsequently sold to A&S Transit, a private bus operator in Singapore.
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External links
Categories: Official Website, Ballymena, Bus Manufacturers Of The United Kingdom, Truck Manufacturers Of The United Kingdom, Hybrid Electric Bus Manufacturers, Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Of Northern Ireland, 1946 Establishments In Northern Ireland, British Companies Established In 1946, Brands Of Northern Ireland
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