Duple Metsec

Duple Metsec was a bus bodywork builder based in West Midlands of England in the United Kingdom. It usually supplied body kits for bus assembly overseas.

It was originated from the bus body manufacturing business of Metal Sections, known as TI Metsec in the late 1970s, the present day Voestalpine Metsec plc. Metal Sections, as the name suggests, produced prefabricated sections of metal for customers for a variety of products. In the early days, Metal Sections was not involved in the bus body business, however, after supplying framing sections for other bus body builders, they decided to get into the business themselves.

The business was acquired by Duple Coachbuilders in 1980/1981. Duple Metsec became a subsidiary of Hestair Group in 1983 and then subsidiary of Trinity Holdings in 1989.

When Duple Coachbuilders was closed by Trinity Holdings in 1989, Duple Metsec was not closed and its business was retained. In October 1998, it was acquired by Mayflower Corporation.

The Duple Metsec factory was closed on formation of TransBus International in 2001, after which point TransBus still manufactured the DM5000 body. The following year, the Duple Metsec body department was merged with Walter Alexander Coachbuilders and Plaxton, those companies also having been acquired by TransBus, then TransBus was finally re-merged into Alexander Dennis in 2004.