Tony Marshall of The Knapheide Manufacturing Company stands by the company’s new compact service body, mounted to a Ford Ranger, at the 2019 Work Truck Show.
A truck doesn’t have to be big to stand out. A service body for a small truck drew its share of attention at the 2019 Work Truck Show.
The Knapheide Manufacturing Company unveiled an aluminum service body on a Ford Ranger pickup at the annual event this March in Indianapolis.
“When Ford brought this vehicle to North America, they announced earlier they were going to do a bed-delete option from factory or provide provisions for bed removal,” said Tony Marshall, manager of product strategy and marketing for Knapheide, which is headquartered in Quincy, Illinois. “And so it’s only natural that we need to provide a solution for a service body. We’re also going to have a platform body, and aluminum platform body for the truck, too.”
Marshall expects the Ranger service body combination will prove popular in cities with narrow streets, such as Charleston, S.C.
“We’ll also sell more of this body than any other body in Hawaii because they like to use these smaller trucks for service work over there,” Marshall said.
The Ranger body caught the eye of show visitor Brandon Garrett, who works for Carter Machinery Co. Ltd. in Mechanicsville, Va.
“We’re starting to integrate lighter-duty equipment into the fleet. DOT restrictions are pushing us in that direction,” Garrett said.
Quick response envisioned
Garrett envisions the smaller service body supplementing Carter’s fleet of hundreds of larger service trucks. A typical example of those is a Kenworth T3 “with service crane and everything,” he said.
According to Carter Machinery’s website, it’s one of the leading Caterpillar dealers in the U.S. with more than 20 locations and 1,100 employees. It also has more than 200 fully equipped field service trucks “with high capacity cranes and access to online heavy equipment parts and service systems via an in-cab, wireless network.”
A smaller service body would potentially provide quick response for the company’s rental operations, Garrett said. Rather than dispatch a large truck, Carter could send a tech out in the smaller unit with diagnostic equipment.
“So it’ll go out, hook up to it, maybe trouble shoot it, and then return with a larger truck. It makes us a bit more nimble,” Garrett said.
Marshall noted that acquisition costs for class 2 trucks for typical service bodies keep getting higher. So smaller trucks with smaller bodies are ideal for quick service runs. “That’s where these trucks hit the sweet spot,” Marshall said.
The all-aluminum body also keeps the weight down. Mounted on the Ranger, the body still has 1,700 pounds of payload remaining. It’s not likely big enough to mount a crane but it can accommodate other accessories.
“You could definitely put a welder on there,” Marshall said. “You’d want to get it closer to mid ship on the truck. You could do a compressor. You could put all those things on with the payload left.”
Competition coming
Garrett’s initial impression was that he liked the body. But he’s looking to see what else is available in the category.
“I’ll have to see how it compares to the competition,” Garrett said. “There’s a bunch of guys getting into this.”
Among them is BrandFX Body Company. President Gary Heisterkamp said the Fort Worth, Texas-headquartered company is working on a composite body for the Ranger.
“We’re probably four to five months away from having that particular unit,” Heisterkamp said as he took questions during a press conference at the 2019 Work Truck Show.
It will take that long because composite bodies require a more complicated process than manufacturing with metal. “I’m not trying to downplay metal,” Heisterkamp said. “It takes shears and brakes and presses and punches, which we have all those.”
Composite bodies, however, require a mold, which begins with fashioning a master mold, which looks just like the finished product. “Then off the master mold, you build the mold. And that’s inside out. And out of the mold comes the part,” Heisterkamp said. “So it’s really a three-step process.”
— Keith Norbury