Drögmöller was a motor coach manufacturer based in Heilbronn

Heilbronn

Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 123.000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, known for the production of touring coaches.

The firm was founded in 1920 by Gotthardt Drögmöller from Mecklenburg

Mecklenburg

Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...

. Originally the Drögmöllers were built on a Mercedes-Benz chassis, but in 1965 the firm started to build complete vehicles, following the pattern established more than a decade earlier by the Ulm

Ulm

Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and...

-based firm Setra

Setra

Setra is a Neu-Ulm, Germany-based manufacturer of commercial buses and touring coaches, and recently a subsidiary of Daimler AG.The name "Setra" comes from "Selbsttragend"...

. Drögmöller gained market exposure by producing touring coaches with so called theatre or panorama seating: these vehicles featured an interior floor incorporating a slight slope towards the rear of the vehicle, which improved forward vision for passengers. Volumes remained modest, however: during the 1980s the firm was producing around 90 vehicles per year with a workforce of approximately 320.

In the 1990s the lucrative German market for touring coaches was dominated by Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...

, Setra

Setra

Setra is a Neu-Ulm, Germany-based manufacturer of commercial buses and touring coaches, and recently a subsidiary of Daimler AG.The name "Setra" comes from "Selbsttragend"...

 and Neoplan

Neoplan

NEOPLAN Bus GmbH is a German automotive company that manufactures buses, trolleybuses and coaches. NEOPLAN is now a subsidiary of NEOMAN Bus GmbH, which itself is a part of MAN SE.-Foundations:...

, and it was presumably in the hope of gaining a more significant share of the German market that in 1994 Volvo

Volvo

AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...

 took a stake in Drögmöller: in 1995 they acquired the business outright. In 1999 a new model with Drögmöller-style theatre seating, the Volvo 9900, was introduced: nevertheless, the closure of the plant in 2005 suggests that Volvo

Volvo

AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...

's ambitions for their acquisition were not fully realised.

Products

• E280
• E290
• E320 EuroPullman
• E330H EuroComet
• E330K MiniComet
• E420 Corsair
• E430 SuperComet
• E440 Meteor
• Volvo 9900