chassis. Its output at 3.5t includes Lutons, dropsides, tippers and traffic management vehicles.
Not all work is payload-sensitive. The amount of room in the cargo body and how easy it is to access may be more important considerations. London-based Trotters Childrenswear is running an electric Renault Trucks E-Tech Master L3H1 platform cab fitted with a low-floor Luton body built by Truckcraft Bodies of Dukinfield in Greater Manchester. With a 19.0m3
load area and a
loading height of just 500mm, it delivers children’s coats, jackets, dresses, jumpers and other items of clothing to stores in the capital, including Harrods. It averages just 20–30 miles a day and its capacity has enabled the firm to reduce its two- vehicle delivery fleet to just one. Trotters’ chief operating officer, Natasha Lunney, says: “Replacing our old polluting vans with a zero-emission electric model that is ULEZ compliant is something we’ve wanted to do for some time.” Truckcraft also builds box, dropside, curtainsider and refrigerated bodies on
light commercial chassis.
Alloy Bodies constructs 1,500– 2,000 bodies annually, with 60% built on light vehicle chassis. “They’re a mixture of Lutons, low-floor Lutons, box vans and curtainsiders,” says Clayton. Curtainsider bodies are not all that common at 3.5t, but Alloy Bodies builds 200–300 a year, he reports. “We can build one that can carry six pallets,” he says. “Vehicles like these are being used by the pallet networks, by courier companies, and by businesses that make aircraft parts and need to transport them.” Curtains allow the entire side of a 3.5-tonner to be opened up. That makes life easy for forklift drivers loading and unloading palletised goods – and for anybody else who needs to load and unload items quickly. Admittedly, curtains are more vulnerable to attacks by thieves than solid body panels, but most thefts from curtainsiders involve laden trucks parked up overnight. A laden 3.5t-curtainsider is unlikely to be parked at night at a service area or in a lay-by, says Clayton. That would not be in line with its typical usage pattern.
Customers looking to acquire a Luton or box van on a light commercial chassis but who are unsure about what they want can avail themselves of a 3D-vehicle configurator on the Alloy Bodies website. “It can be of help to salespeople at dealerships too,” says Clayton. Everything that it configures meets type approval requirements, he stresses. The overall supply situation is far easier than it was in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, a period during which costs escalated and shortages of some key items arose.
The economies of scale achieved
by Alloy Bodies enabled it to buy materials in bulk to ensure it did not run short. “The drawback was that we had to pay premium prices,” Clayton admits.
Other major body builders have been affected by costs in the rental sector. The reluctance of vehicle
manufacturers to offer them the level of discounts on bulk purchases of chassis they were accustomed to has meant fewer orders. Volume body builders have been affected as a consequence.
The discount policy pursued by manufacturers was justified by a shortage of chassis after production lines struggled to catch up after the Covid-19 pandemic. They prioritised selling to small or medium-sized businesses to achieve better profit margins than they could obtain by selling to big fleets. While delivery times are not back to pre-pandemic levels, chassis are now in freer supply. “So I think we’ll see manufacturers take off their self- imposed shackles early next year and start talking to the rental companies again,” Clayton predicts.
Odds are they will be encouraging the uptake of battery-electrics. So says Phillips: “If you order an electric chassis, you’ll probably get it in 12 to 16 weeks. By contrast you could be waiting six to eight months for a diesel.” Tipmaster does little business with the big rental fleets, claims Terry, and it is not interested in pumping out standardised products in big numbers. “There’s a lot of variation in the bodies we produce,” he says.
An electric Renault E-Tech Master fitted with a Luton body for London-based children’s wear company, Trotters.
The company makes everything from cage tippers with bin lifts to tipping bodies designed for tree surgeons. “Most of our customers are in London, and while they might be able to get a better deal on a body elsewhere, they know that I’ll support them if they’ve got a problem,” he observes. “We’ve got a healthy order book into the second quarter of next year, but to be honest I’m expecting a bit of a slowdown,” Terry admits. “A lot of the builders I know are cutting back on their activities.” They may be engaged in small developments, but they have no plans to buy large plots of land and construct major housing estates – and that has clear implications for sales of tippers and other light commercials.
@whatvan November 2023 WhatVan? 19
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