Custom Coaches

Custom Bus

Punchbowl Bus Company Volvo B7RLE at Central station in July 2013
Industry	Bus manufacturing
Founded	1935
Founder	Stanley Hillsdon
Headquarters	Villawood
Revenue	$80 million (2012)
Parent	Mark Burgess Allegro Funds
Website	www.customcoaches.com.au

Custom Bus (previously Custom Coaches) is an Australian bus bodybuilder in Villawood, New South Wales.

In 1935 Stanley Hillsdon founded Cycle Components Manufacturing Company (CCMC) in Guildford, having been involved in manufacture of bicycles since 1911. In 1946 the company won the contract to manufacture reversible seats for Sydney's tram system.

In 1955 CCMC successfully tendered to body 125 single deck Leyland Royal Tiger Worldmaster buses for the NSW Department of Government Transport. In May 1956 Jack Violet, Hillsdon's nephew by marriage, was employed as Bus Divisional Manager to oversee operations. In April 1958 CCMC bodied their first bus for a private operator, a Leyland Comet for Rowes Bus Service.

Apart from six MAN SL200 and SG192s bodied for ACTION in 1982/82 as part of a contracted included when Smithfield Bus & Coach Works was purchased and 19 Scania K112TR coaches bodied for the State Rail Authority in 1985/86, CCMC built bodies exclusively for private operators after the completion of the Leyland Worldmaster contract for the next 37 years.

In 1962 control of CCMC passed from Hillsdon to Violet. At some point the business was renamed Custom Coaches Manufacturing Company. In May 1981 the Smithfield Bus & Coach Works business was purchased from the Bosnjak family. Custom Coaches concentrated on bodying buses for the private sector. In 1967 CCMC entered into an agreement with Melbourne bodybuiler WA Newnham & Sons for CCMC to provide frames and other components. CCMC also supplied components to Brisbane bodybuilder Watt Brothers in the 1960s and Perth's Howard Porter in the 1970s.

In 1988 CCMC purchased WA Newnham & Sons with the business renamed Newnham Custom. In 1995 a plant was opened at Arundel on the Gold Coast. Newnham Custom closed in 2001 with production transferred to Adelaide.