Prevost

Prevost began in 1924 in Sainte-Claire, Quebec. Eugène Prévost was a cabinetmaker who made church pews and school furniture. That year he was asked to build a wooden coach body and mount it on a new REO truck chassis. The company built its first bus plant in Sainte-Claire in 1937, and in 1945 it introduced its first all-metal body over an all-metal frame.

In 1957 Paul Normand bought the company, and it was renamed Prevost Car. Its business was passenger coaches: buses sold to the companies that run tours and intercity routes. The 1966 Champion had three axles, a split-level floor and air conditioning. Prevost describes it as the first North American coach with an integral structure. That means the frame and body are one welded unit, not a body set on a separate chassis. Wikipedia says the Champion was the first Prevost marketed in the United States. BUSRide reports that at about that time Prevost opened its first US sales and service centers, in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, and Los Angeles.

The motorhome business grew out of the bus business. In 1969 two American businessmen, Thomas B. Harbison and William G. Campbell, formed a partnership with André Normand to own Prevost. Both were longtime motorhome owners. In 1970 the first Champion conversion shell left the assembly line. A conversion shell is a bus built with a nearly empty cabin so that another company can finish the inside. In 1978 Prevost showed its first Le Mirage conversion shell at the Family Motor Coach Association meeting. Harbison and Campbell had helped engineer it.

In 1984 Prevost moved to a 102-inch-wide body with the Le Mirage XL and the Prevost XL, sold both as passenger coaches and as conversion shells. A second line, the H-Series, began in 1985 with the H5-60, a 60-foot articulated bus. BUSRide's timeline says the H3-40 followed in 1989, both as a touring coach and as a shell for conversion. In 1992 came the 45-foot XL-45, introduced for traveling entertainers. Prevost's motorhome history page says that in 1993 it launched the H3-41 and H3-45 touring coaches together with the H3-45 VIP, a bus shell for high-end conversion.

In 1995 Volvo of Sweden and Henlys Group of Britain took joint ownership of Prevost. In October 2004 Volvo agreed to buy the Henlys half for 83 million US dollars, a price that included two loans Henlys had made to the company. Prévost Car Inc., which by then also held the Nova Bus city-bus brand, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Volvo Bus Corporation. Volvo's filing at the time described Prevost as a maker of coaches and of bus shells for luxury mobile homes.

The XL line was followed by the Le Mirage XLII, which went into production in January 2000 and was given a facelift in 2004. Prevost launched the X3-45 in 2006. Engines changed too. Wikipedia says the Volvo D13 replaced the Detroit Diesel Series 60 for the 2008 model year, and BUSRide reported that in 2010 Prevost announced all of its vehicles would use the D13.

Prevost still builds passenger coaches. Its 2023 H3-45 seats 56 and its X3-45 seats 55, and it added a commuter version of the X3-45 in 2011. For motorhomes it offers two shells, the H3-45 VIP and the X3-45 VIP. Both are 45 feet long and 102 inches wide, with a 500-horsepower Volvo D13 engine, an Allison six-speed automatic transmission and optional factory slide-outs.

Prevost does not finish motorhomes itself. Its motorhome website names five converter partners that do: Marathon Coach, Liberty Coach, Emerald Luxury Coaches, Millennium Luxury Coaches and Featherlite Coaches. Prevost shells are also finished as entertainer coaches for touring performers. Wikipedia says the two heavily modified buses the US Secret Service introduced in 2011 are X3-45 VIP shells fitted out by Hemphill Brothers Coach Company of Nashville.

Prevost introduced a redesigned H3-45 in 2023 and marked its 100th year in 2024. Its main factory is still in Sainte-Claire.