However, one area of the automobile sector where coachbuilding survived and has seen a renaissance of sorts is in the development of limousines and hearses. Formerly the preserve of names such as Rolls Royce, Bentley and Daimler, with vehicles bodied by Mulliner and Park Ward amongst others, increased demand for limousines and hearses to serve the British Isles funeral profession has seen the market grow to the point where it can accommodate both these established brands and new imported ones.

Manufacturers now active here include Coleman Milne, Wilcox, MacNeillie, Startin and Coway to name but a few, with Fearghas Quinn in Co. Antrim across the Irish Sea and Duffy in Eire proper south of the border. However, hearse and limousine building is not exclusively a UK craft, and given the finite size of some home markets it comes as no surprise to find many continental coachbuilders actively selling across national boundaries. So alongside Binz GmbH, we now have companies such as Pollman Karosserie, Rappold Karosserie and Welsch in Germany, Blaugaum in Spain, and Pilato in Italy.

All of these firms produce European style limousines and sometimes hearses too. However, the ostentatiousness of the New World cannot be ignored, and the UK market today is flooded with American limousines from companies such as the Eagle Coach Company and Krystal to name but two.

Of the ‘old-school’ UK coachbuilders, Coleman Milne was founded in 1953 by Roderick Milne and his partner, John Coleman. Initially the Company built horseboxes but quickly moved into the development of limousines and funeral hearses. Today, after several changes of ownership, including bus builders Plaxton, the company is now under the holding of Woodall Nicholson Limited. Woodall Nicholson itself being one of the original inter-war coachbuilders, and one of the key manufacturers of the Daimler DS420 hearse.

Links to an earlier era also underpin Wilcox, is another of the current suppliers of hearses and limousines. Wilcox supplies vehicles manufactured by another illustrious name in coachbuilding, Eagle Specialist Vehicles, not to be confused with the American manufacturer Eagle Coach Company.

To make things more confusing, the Wilcox name is also borne by Wilcox Coachbuilders, manufacturers of horseboxes and livestock trailers – though the two are completely separate companies. Wilcox offers a range of Daimler, Vauxhall & Jaguar hearses and limousines.

Tracing the history of some of these business can be fascinating. Take the Birmingham firm of Thomas Startin Ltd. It was a long-standing Austin (and Rover) dealer, but the company also had a commercial coachbuilding arm. Originally established in 1840, its coachbuilding output was by the 1970s concentrated on hearses. Their main business consisting then of producing a couple of designs based on the Daimler DS420, although they had previously converted a small number of Austin FL2s. In the late 1980s Startins turned their attention to the Rover 800, producing matching limousine and hearse conversions at their new premises in the Witton area of Birmingham.

But by the end of the 1990s Startins' coachbuilding division had been bought by S MacNeillie & Son, specialists in the armour protection market. MacNeillie transferred production of the 800 based vehicles to their own premises at Walsall in the West Midlands. MacNeillie in turn has been in the coachbuilding business for over 85 years and the company covers a whole range of products from police conversions to minibuses.

But as safety and emissions legislation, concerns over product liability and customer expectations work towards making the automobile ever-more sophisticated, is there room for the traditional coachbuilder’s art any more? For the answer, we have perhaps to look at what is going on at one of the newer brands on the UK market, Binz UK Ltd.

BINZ & Co. Coachworks in Lorch/Germany was founded by Michael Binz in 1936. Today BINZ is synonymous for first class innovative special purpose vehicles - from rescue vehicles to stretched limousines. Companies like Daimler AG, Volkswagen and others rely on the BINZ’ know-how and closely cooperate with the company.

BINZ engineers transform good automobiles into even better ones. By extending, enlarging and creating new designs or installing special purpose equipment they create extended limousines which are unparalleled the world over. Due to intelligently organized production processes which are documented in detail, expertly taken care of and stringently controlled, BINZ not only holds DIN EN ISO 9001 certification, but also the most prestigious VDA 6.1; a quality standard used by some large main stream motor vehicle manufacturers, and especially in this case :- Mercedes-Benz (Daimler AG).

By maintaining a widespread sales network it is possible to deliver BINZ ‘Made in Germany’ quality products directly to their customers on all five continents. Limousine services, car rentals or government representatives can be sure to find what they are looking for with Binz.

Three essentials determine the BINZ view of the future: First of all, permanent improvement of product quality and safety parameters of rescue vehicles and stretch limousines. Secondly, striving for continuity and positive development of the business, and last but not least, to keep on building special purpose automobiles with top-level technology.

In the British Isles, Binz products are marketed by Binz UK, previously distributors of a long line of Volvo authorised and fully Type Approved Volvo limousines and hearses. Though starting out with the same working practices and design methods that were then commonplace in the coachbuilding industry in the late 1970s, the company progressively embraced newer technologies in both design and manufacture, in order to guarantee the engineering integrity of each new generation of vehicles.