General Motors Diesel Division

General Motors Diesel Division (GMDD) was the branch of automobile maker General Motors (GM) that was responsible for the Canadian manufacturing of GM's Transit Buses.

Old-look

Starting as part of the truck division, the first bus in major production was the so-called Old Look Transit Bus, which was introduced in 1940 by Yellow Coach, beginning with the production of the model TG-3201 bus. Yellow Coach was an early bus builder that was partially owned by GM before being purchased outright in 1943 and folded into the GM Truck Division to form the GM Truck & Coach Division. The Yellow Coach name was dropped in favour of the GM nameplate in 1944. Approximately 38,000 "old-look" buses were built during the 29-year production run. The "old-look" name is an unofficial term that was applied to this series of GM buses after the release of the GM New Look, with "New-Look" being an official term used by GM to describe their new line of buses that superseded the "old-look".

New-look

In 1959, GM introduced the "New Look" transit bus, which was adopted by many transit agencies across North America, with thousands eventually manufactured. The streamlined design was imitated by other manufacturers such as Flxible and Flyer (later New Flyer Industries), and became an iconic design for many years to come. The last New Look was not produced until 1986.

In 1961 GM opened an assembly plant in London, Ontario, where bus assembly was performed until being moved to a factory in St-Eustache, Quebec, in 1979. The last New Look was assembled in the US in 1977.

Classic

In 1977, GMC, GMDD's American counterpart, introduced the Rapid Transit Series (RTS) bus. GMDD considered manufacturing the RTS for the Canadian market, but decided not to when Canadian transit agencies stated their dislike of the RTS's design. As a result, GMDD continued to manufacture New Looks for the Canadian market, as well as for a few American agencies after GMC ceased producing the New Look upon introduction of the RTS.

In 1982, GMDD introduced the Classic, a modernized, updated version of the New Look. The design was met with positive reactions from transit agencies in Canada, as well as the US where several agencies ordered Classics instead of RTS's.

As the 1980's continued, GMDD saw increasing competition from manufacturers such as the then Ontario-government owned Orion, and Winnipeg-based New Flyer Industries, which were popular in their home provinces. GMDD's buses remained popular in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, however.

In 1987, GMDD's transit bus operations were sold to Motor Coach Industries, who continued manufacture of the Classic until 1993, introducing an articulated version of the Classic that was only ever purchased by two transit agencies due to the purchase of MCI's transit bus division by NovaBus, a company founded by employees of the St-Eustache assembly plant.

NovaBus discontinued production of the articulated Classic (after completing an order of them from Halifax), focusing solely on producing the 40-foot version until they introduced the LFS (Low Floor Series) bus in 1995. Following this, orders for the Classic dropped, and NovaBus ceased production of the Classic in 1997, after completing an order for Auger Metropolitain in Châteauguay, Quebec.

NovaBus still uses the St-Eustache assembly plant that was first opened by GMDD almost 30 years ago.