Biography|Filip Van Hool — He Joined the Family Plant on Bernard Van Hoolstraat in 1989

The plant on Bernard Van Hoolstraat in Koningshooikt is where Van Hool actually built the coaches.

Filip Van Hool, grandson of founder Bernard and son of Denis, joined that company in 1989.

British Companies House lists his month of birth as April 1964. Flemish profiles that called him sixty in late 2024 match that register line.

He had trained in applied economics in Antwerp and as a commercial engineer at EHSAL in Brussels.

The street carries the founder's name. The offices and assembly halls sit in the Lier district where Bernard started the firm in 1947.

By 1989 the works were already a West European independent bus builder, not a coachworks behind a farm.

Filip entered as family, not as a hired outsider. He would spend the next thirty-five years on this site.

In 1999 he joined the executive team and took charge of Bus and Car operations.

In 2007 he became a director of Van Hool NV and of ABC Companies, the firm's exclusive United States distributor.

The official seat in the Belgian company register is number 58, postcode 2500 Lier. Koningshooikt is the deelgemeente.

The 1989 start is the date that turns a grandson into a works man.

Everything later — the board seat, the chief-executive title in 2013 — traces to this gate.

After the April 2024 bankruptcy the halls operate under VDL, with a thinner payroll.

A visitor finds the same street name and a much smaller workforce.

Photo: Bert76, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons