Keith Norbury
Military Truck
ICUEE 2017 attendees ride by the Monterra 4x4 truck chassis on display next to the 6x6 chassis with Brutus body on Acela Truck Company’s stand.
Imagine a heavy-duty service truck that can work in the world’s most extreme environments.
David Ronsen, founder and president of Montana-based Acela Truck Company, not only imagined such a vehicle, he brought one to the International Construction & Utility Equipment Exposition in Louisville, Ky., in early October.
The Acela Monterra 6x6 chassis on the company’s stand came equipped with a custom service body built by Brutus Truck Bodies of Penticton, B.C.
“Anywhere where you have commercial vehicles operating in a challenged terrain, we belong,” Ronsen said in an interview following ICUEE.
Acela, which was founded in 2016, takes surplus military trucks called FMTVs — which stands for family of military tactical vehicles — and uses a 1,600-point process involving the replacement of 600 parts to convert them to commercial use.
Keith Norbury
Brutus Truck Body
Wade Hansen, owner of Truck Equipment Enterprises LLC, a Murray, Utah-based dealer for B.C.-based Brutus Truck Bodies, checks out the Brutus body on an Acela Truck Company chassis at Acela’s ICUEE stand.
Many have survived combat
“These trucks are used to get troops and cargo anywhere in a combat zone,” Ronsen said of the FMTVs. “I’d say half of the vehicles that we get were absolutely in Afghanistan or Iraq.”
The company — based in Belgrade, Mont. — also makes a four-wheel drive version called the Monterra 4x4.
The Monterra 6x6 chassis was from an FMTV built by Stewart and Stephenson, a Houston, Texas firm that had the original contract from the U.S. military to build the FMTVs from 1996 to 2006.
In its rebuilding program Acela works only with FMTVs manufactured since 2000, Ronsen said.
He was previously with Bronto Trucks, which seven or eight years ago had an exclusive contract to distribute a commercial version of the FMTV to the oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alta. That version was manufactured by a company called BAE Systems Inc., which then had the FMTV contract.
Unfortunately, when Oshkosh Corporation won the FMTV contract in 2011, it had no interest in producing a commercial version, Ronsen said.
“The supply ran out,” Ronsen said. “Brutus was a partner back then. Brutus built several of the bodies that went into some of the mines up in Fort Mac and did a great job. Their product is absolutely top notch. So it was natural for us to reach right back out to them and get them involved in round 2.”
He and his partners, who have more than 70 years of experience in truck manufacturing, recognized a gap in the North America market for such a heavy duty truck.
“On any continent other than North America you’ll find 10 different variants of this style of truck,” Ronsen said.
North American users have typically put 4x4 or 6x6 suspension on on-highway vehicles, “which really does not work in almost every single case,” or relied on track vehicles or truck-trailer combinations that have “astronomical” costs, he said.
Bridging the gap
“So we really bridge the gap between the wheel vehicles that were available before we showed up and the tracked or articulated vehicles,” Ronsen said.
He declined to say how many of the Monterra trucks Acela has sold to date, but revealed that the forecast is to deliver 350 units in 2018. At present, the company employs about 30 people at its plant, a converted heliport, but expects to have 55 on staff by the end of 2017.
“We’re ramping up slowly in year 1 and hoping to increase sales from there for next year,” Ronsen said.
Among the parts being replaced or refurbished in Acela’s proprietary process are hoses, belts, seals, and gaskets. “And the way we do that is a true automotive assembly line fashion,” Ronsen said. “The trucks come in one of end of our building, get completely dismantled down to the frame rails, go through a sandblasting and pressure washing process, then into body and paint, then into final assembly when all of those parts are upgraded and been added, and then right into Q.A. (quality assurance)”
To determine what needed replacing, Acela examined closely the military’s data on the trucks to look for weak spots, he said. The company also realized at the outset that it needed to partner with the military’s tier 1 vendors on the truck — such as Meritor, BAE, and Dana — “because many of the parts on the truck are not available except though military contract.”
The Brutus body on display at ICUEE also has an extensive spec sheet. The 15-foot, 10-inch steel and aluminum body measures 98 inches wide with a cabinet height of 64 inches and cabinet depth of 24 inches. Its features include 3/16-inch aluminum doors, eighth-inch aluminum shelving, and three-point stainless steel latches.
Well-received but still for sale
Among the accessories on the truck are a Cobra 11000.3 RDH wireless hydraulic crane, Vanair Powerflex AH diesel multifunction system, and a Miller Trailblazer 325 welder/generator/jump starter.
Industries the truck and body are geared toward include “forestry, oil and gas, mining obviously, and some construction,” said Wade Hansen, owner of Truck Equipment Enterprises LLC, a Murray, Utah-based dealer for Brutus.
Hansen had hoped to sell the truck at ICUEE at an asking price of $258,000. But at last report, it was still for sale.
“The reception was great for both the truck and the body,” Ronsen said. “A lot of the folks there, I say, were much more interested in utility bodies just because of the particular audience. I’d say half of the folks that stopped at the booth and showed a genuine interest were interested in the truck chassis. And the other half were interested in the service body.”
Ronsen said Acela has boots on the ground in northern Alberta, where the company is offering a complete truck body and service package for the Fort McMurray area. But the company is also pursuing relationships in the Bakken and Permian oil fields in the U.S., as well as in other industries working extreme conditions.
“The problems that we solve are uptime and access,” Ronsen said, adding that “the army over-engineered this truck to perform anywhere on the planet.”
