Coachbuilder

A coachbuilder manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.

The trade of producing coachwork began with bodies for horse-drawn vehicles. Today it includes custom automobiles, buses, motor coaches, and railway carriages.

The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs.^[1] A vehicle body constructed by a coachbuilder may be called a "coachbuilt body" (British English) or "custom body" (American English), and is not to be confused with a custom car.

Prior to the popularization of unibody construction in the 1960s, many independent coachbuilders built bodies on rolling chassis provided by luxury or sports car manufacturers, both for individual customers and makers themselves. Marques such as Ferrari originally outsourced all bodywork to coachbuilders such as Pininfarina and Scaglietti.

Today, the coach building trade has largely shifted to making bodies for short runs of specialized commercial vehicles such as motor coaches and luxury recreational vehicles. A 'conversion' is built inside an existing vehicle body.

Many renowned automotive coachbuilders have been based in Italy (carrozzeria) and France (carrosserie).