Jonathan Welch took the opportunity to look at Caetano’s hydrogen-fuelled H2.City Gold while it was on trial with Stagecoach in Inverness
Caetano is a name which will be familiar to most within the coach and bus industry, but outside London, it is the former rather than the latter that most people think of when they hear the name. Built mostly on Scania and Volvo chassis, coaches bearing the Caetano name are no stranger to the A-roads, motorways and coach stations of the country, initially on National Express work, and now spreading their wings further as the early-generation models find second lives with other operators. However, the Portuguese manufacturer, has been finding niche success across Europe with its electric and hydrogen-fuelled buses.
A history lesson
The business we know today as CaetanoBus was founded back in 1946, producing bodies for coaches and buses out of wood. In 1955, the company then known as Salvador Caetano after its founder started producing steel bodywork. In 1966, it opened a new manufacturing plant in the town of Gaia, exporting its first coach to the UK the following year. 1990 marked the start of production of the now-familiar wide-bodied Cobus airport buses, whilst in the minibus sector the company’s partnership with Toyota has delivered with the success of the Coaster, the Portuguese company having been sole importer of Toyota products to its home market since 1968.
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