Almost all of the coaches at Guðmundur Tyrfingsson Ltd are built here in Iceland by the staff of the daughter company, Tyrfingsson Ltd.

The first coach was built in 1969 and since then around 30 coaches have been built from scratch. In addition, many smaller vehicles (20 passengers or less) have been changed into coaches.

Initially, Guðmundur Tyrfingsson and Guðmundur Laugdal Jónsson were building the coaches by themselves in a Nissen hut in Hrísmýri in Selfoss.

A new facility was built in 1992 at Fossnes C, Selfoss, for the coach building and maintenance. The same year, Tyrfingsson Ltd was founded to take care of the design, building and maintenance of all the coaches for Guðmundur Tyrfingsson Ltd.

When a new coach is to be built from scratch, the first things to decide are the size of the coach and what kind of chassis is best for the weight.

While building, we carefully look over the safety details and try to have the coaches as light as possible to keep fuel consumption and pollution as low as possible.

Almost always, a new chassis from Mercedes Benz is ordered, which comes with an engine, steering wheel, power transmission equipment and undercarriage. When the chassis arrives, the upper part of the superstructure is usually finished and work has been started on the windows and the top. These parts are then lifted up, the sides built, the chassis put in place, and the floor and doors completed. When that is all done, the coach is painted with a foundation paint, plywood is put in compartments and on the floor, and the chassis is covered with aluminium and steel on the outside.

Then the coach is painted and the seats and glass (which are imported) put in. Since 2001 we have ordered seats you can move sideways, three-point seatbelts for all passengers, footrests, reclining seats and other equipment that increases passenger safety and ensures the comfort of the passenger.

It takes two or three workers about eight months to build a coach, but of course it depends on the size of the coach and what equipment is to be fitted. Guðmundur Laugdal is the head builder and has from the start taken care of the design, blueprints and construction, along with Guðmundur Tyrfingsson, Grétar Árnarsson and Tyrfingur Guðmundsson.

By building the coaches ourselves we get them exactly as we want them. Foreign factories make coaches designed only for freeways and not for diverse circumstances like here in Iceland. We always buy the most environmentally friendly engines. Almost all of our coaches have ABS brakes and the newest ones have disc brakes on all wheels.