Union City Body Company was founded in 1896 in Union City, Indiana, USA as a manufacturer of carriages, buggies and wagons. One of the first customers was Elwood Haynes of Kokomo, Indiana, the manufacturer of the Haynes-Apperson automobile, which was one of the country’s first production automobiles. Later customers included Auburn, Duesenberg, Essex, and Pierce Arrow, for whom they built bodies. From the 1970s through the 1980s, Union City provided delivery trucks (step-vans) directly to large fleet customers such as United Parcel Service.