In recent years ‘Made in Melbourne for Melbourne’ signs have started appearing on buses operating around Melbourne, but in reality that claim is a little stretched – we build the bus bodies locally atop an imported bus chassis.
The process starts with a bus chassis – a bare steel frame with diesel engine and mechanical running gear, manufactured by overseas companies such as Scania, Volvo, Mercedes, MAN, Iveco or BYD.
They arrive in Melbourne onboard a roll-on/roll-off ship.
Then driven down to the wharf.
And transported on the back of a truck to the Volgren factory at Dandenong.
There they fabricate aluminium.
Australasian Bus and Coach photo
To form the floor, walls and roof of a bus.
Then add fiberglass front fairings.
Rear ones.
And larger modules like air conditioning units.
Put them all together.
Then add seats and everything else passengers need inside.
Australasian Bus and Coach photo
And you have what we recognise as a bus.
Footnote: but can you take them for a drive?
Yes, you can actually take a bare diesel bus chassis for a drive.
But the chassis for electric buses are more complicated with their roof mounted batteries.
So they get imported as a wrapped up package that needs to be towed around.
Footnote: Gemilang Australia
Gemilang Australia is another company that has built buses for Melbourne, as a joint venture between Malaysian bus builder Gemilang, and OzPress Industries of Ballarat. Their “locally built” buses are imported as knock-down kit, then finished here.
I’ve always hated the “Made in Melbourne for Melbourne” stickers on trains, trams and whatnot. It’s so unnecessary and I think by now we get the message (Even if the entire vehicle isn’t actually made in Melbourne). At this point all those stickers do is just block the view from inside!
Even Perth has basically copied the same thing from Victoria, they’ve recently put “Made in WA” stickers on their new trains.
In my experience, while this has been most common with the V/Locity trains (many of these signages has since been removed) and some buses, I have not seen much of this signage on public transport, even among buses that are made in Melbourne recently. So apart from the V/Locity trains, it has actually been rare for me to see one. I don’t think I have even seen one on a HCMT train.
They’ve been on a lot of the E-class trams.
E class tram.
And a VLocity.
While the PTV electric bus livery has small ‘100% Electric Bus. Made in Melbourne” text at roof level.
It is better to have foreign vehicles. much better than the ones put together here
Its much better to just import the whole bus from the manfacturer which looks nicer. the volgren busses are so ugly
We imported these buses from Designline in New Zealand, and they’re odd looking beats.