Buses and coaches across America are set to be kept cool by a West Midlands engineering business.

Tyseley-based Grayson Thermal Systems, which designs and manufactures cooling, heating and air conditioning products for vehicles, has launched a new venture in the US.

From their operations base in Orlando, Florida, they will be targeting manufacturers of small to medium sized vehicles in a bid to help them achieve optimal heating and cooling systems at an early stage in their development programmes.

Managing director Stuart Hateley said: “The key players in the American bus and coach industry, and the specialist vehicle sector, are huge.

“Most component and systems suppliers are therefore geared to meeting the needs of these few companies, but they do not offer the kind of partnership approach that Grayson has developed.

“Support to second tier bus and coach manufacturers is even less well-developed, and we are aiming to fill that gap by working closely with these companies to provide the products they need.

“We believe that we can offer this high-end service and still provide good value for money.” The new venture is being headed by David Wright, who has emigrated to America with his family after spending two years developing Grayson’s European business.

Now, he will be responsible for forging new business relationships and establishing a stockholding operation in America, with a view to developing manufacturing facilities state-side.

The company – owned and managed by the Hateley family – currently boasts a turnover in the UK of £20m. Projected sales at Grayson Thermal Systems Corporation will top $6m within 36 months according to company figures, and it aims to secure seven per cent of the bus and coach market, and five per cent of the specialist vehicle market, by the end of the new business’s third year of operation.