Carbodies traces its origins to 1919, when Robert “Bobby” Jones, a former general manager at Hollick & Pratt, took over the coachbuilding operations of the timber merchants Gooderhams and set up in West Orchard, Coventry. Rather than making bespoke bodies, Carbodies produced standardised designs for car companies without their own coachbuilding plant. Early customers were MG and Alvis, and a contract to build the MG M-Type Midget bodies took it to Holyhead Road in 1928, where it remained. In the 1930s it supplied Rover, Invicta and Railton, and by far its biggest customer was the Rootes Group.
After the war it made the Austin FX3 taxi bodies from 1948, and more than 7,000 FX3s were produced in ten years. It also developed a way of turning all-steel saloons into convertibles, used on the Hillman Minx, Austin Somerset and Hereford, and the Ford Consul and Zephyr. BSA bought it in 1954 and put it under Daimler, and in 1958 it began making the Austin FX4, the most important vehicle in its history. It also supplied the Jaguar E-type bonnet prototype and did estate conversions of the Humber Hawk and Super Snipe.
In 1971 it took over from Austin the manufacture of complete London taxis, and two years later Manganese Bronze Holdings bought it. It was rebranded as The London Taxi Company in October 2010 and placed in administration in October 2012; certain assets were bought by Geely to form what is now the London EV Company.
