Kässbohrer vehicle works
| Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH
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|---|---|
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1893 |
| Seat | Ulm , Germany |
| Branch | commercial vehicles |
The Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH was a vehicle manufacturer in Ulm , the buses , semi-trailers and trailers produced and ATVs. The group dissolved in 1995 due to economic problems.
The brands of the group live on in companies that are independent of one another: The Kässbohrer family of entrepreneurs is still active in vehicle construction with the Austrian Kässbohrer Transport Technik GmbH . The name Kässbohrer also lives on in Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH in Goch (semi-trailer and trailer division) and Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG in Laupheim . The former bus production facility in Ulm is now part of the Daimler subsidiary EvoBus , which continues to produce under the Setra brand name .
history
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The technical and industrial development in the second half of the 19th century brought about the transition from the centuries-old craft to mechanized operation through the use of the machine in wagon construction.
Karl Heinrich Kässbohrer founded the family company in 1893 with the Kässbohrer Wagenfabrik . In 1904 the company moved to what was then Ulm's "Neustadt" due to growth. With orders from several vehicle manufacturers, bodies for passenger car chassis were produced for the first time from 1910 . For the transport company co-founded by Karl Kässbohrer in 1911 (Ulm – Wiblingen bus line), a bus body on a truck chassis was manufactured by Saurer . A second copy followed in the same year. At that time, the company received its first patent for a combined bus body for transporting people and goods. In 1922, Kässbohrer designed a truck trailer with solid rubber tires. At the end of 1922, after the death of Karl Heinrich Kässbohrer, the two sons Karl and Otto Kässbohrer took over management and responsibility for the company. In 1924, the mechanical engineer Karl Kässbohrer developed the first two-sided tipping trailer with two tipping winches arranged in the longitudinal axis.
After the takeover of the Neuer & Thieme bodywork factory in Ulm (1928), bus production was further expanded and production streamlined. The first Kässbohrer sightseeing omnibuses with sliding roofs and full glazing of the upper part were built between 1928 and 1930. In 1934 the foundations for today's factory facilities were laid in Peter-Schmid-Strasse and in 1938 the neighboring trailer and transport equipment factory A. Mattes & Co. was taken over.
During the Second World War , up to 1,500 foreign forced laborers were used at Kässbohrer . Production focused on military equipment. At the end of the war, 80 percent of the factory facilities were destroyed by bombing.
After the currency reform in 1948, the plant had 850 employees again. In 1951 Otto Kässbohrer developed his first self-supporting bus S 8. In 1952 Kässbohrer built his first articulated bus with the front end of a MAN MKN 26. The first self-supporting luxury articulated bus “Golden Eagle” appeared in 1958 for the US long-distance bus line market.
Between 1953 and 1967 internal restructuring took place, the establishment of a Germany-wide repair and spare parts service network with branch plants in Dortmund, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin and the construction of a new bus production hall for Setra buses. In 1968, the company celebrated its 75th anniversary, it expanded abroad for the first time and built a new plant in Salzburg , Austria . The group had reached its peak and was now the largest producer of coaches and truck trailers in Germany. In 1969, the product range was expanded to include the PistenBully , which quickly proved to be extremely successful. Ten years later, in 1979, over 2000 Bullys were driving in 35 countries.
At the end of the 1980s, Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH was the second largest GmbH in Germany with around 9,000 employees. The change in the economy towards globalization and the great international competition also left their mark on this company. In the phase of economic recession, deep cuts suddenly became necessary. The market share fell steadily and jobs were cut.
Dissolution of the group
In 1993 the group started to dissolve. The commercial vehicle superstructures , semitrailers and trailers division was sold to the former competitor Kögel , with the exception of the tank and silo vehicle division (this division was taken over by Fahrzeugwerke Rohr , Straubing , then sold again and later insolvent. The Rohr Spezialfahrzeuge are meanwhile themselves a subsidiary of Kässbohrer Transport Technik GmbH ). In 1994 the last profitable area, the off-road vehicle division with PistenBully and BeachTech , was outsourced to the independent company Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug GmbH .
1995 came the end for the parent company. The Daimler-Benz AG bought Setra up and put his bus division Mercedes-Benz Setra together. Since then, this area has operated under the name EvoBus , but the Setra and Mercedes-Benz brands continue to exist.
At the same time as the takeover came into force, the brothers Heinrich, Ulrich and Otfried Kässbohrer were able to buy back the Austrian plant. March 1st, 1995 was the hour of birth of today's Kässbohrer Transport Technik GmbH, based in Eugendorf near Salzburg , the only Kässbohrer company still owned by the Kässbohrer family.
The semitrailer / trailer brand Kässbohrer went to the Turkish Tirsan group in 2002, which later also acquired the Dutch box body manufacturer Talson and the German tanker manufacturer Hendricks from Goch .
Individual evidence
- ↑ kaessbohrer-goch.com: Kässbohrer is exhibiting its products at Bauma 2010 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release 2010, accessed August 5, 2012
