Category:Union City Body Company

Union City Body Company 

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The Union City Body Co. was a carriage maker, and soon coachbuilder. Early automobile bodies were fitted on chassis by Apperson, Clark, Davis, Haynes, Haynes-Apperson, H.C.S., Lexington, National, Premier, and Chandler. The company delivered production automobile bodies for Auburn, Duesenberg, Essex, and Pierce Arrow. It also made bus, school bus, and commercial vehicle bodies, often using Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, International, and White chassis. Union City Body further supplied Studebaker with truck cabs.

The Union City Body Co. was one of the companies that formed the combine in 1927 of which in 1929 the Cord Corporation evolved. It shared production of the open body styles for the Cord L-29 with the Limousine Body Co. Together with other Indiana based companies, the A.H. Walker Co. from Indianapolis (Walker-LaGrande), and the Central Manufacturing Co. from Connersville they were the in-house body operations of the Cord Corporation. So, Union City not only was an important body supplier for production Auburns, it built most of the famous Auburn Speedsters, and the two famous "SSJ" Duesenberg roadsters on shortened frames. Further, they executed Gordon Buehrig/LaGrande designs on Duesenbergs, and made bespoke bodies for Auburn, Duesenberg, and the Cord L-29.

During WWII, the company produced buses on Ford chassis only.

In the early 1950, Union City Body Co. entered manufacture of step vans. They were labeled "Utility", and built by a Union City Body subsidiary, the Utility Truck Distributors Inc. of Union City, as division of Union City Body Co.

In the 1980s, the Ikarus 416 bus was built.

The Union City Body Co. is unrelated to the Union City Carriage Co., which made carriages and very few automobiles in Union City.