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Stunning liveries on new DAFs at famous brewer

7th June 2010 Print
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A dozen new DAFs in the fleet of famous Suffolk brewer Greene King are sporting a variety of colourful liveries to promote the company’s highly popular beers.

Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale and the renowned Greene King IPA are all enjoying increased popularity amongst discerning drinkers. The bold advertising on the new trucks aims to build on that and to do so it uses strong and colourful imagery. The cabs have also been painted in a two-pack gloss to match each of the individual – and very different – liveries.

The trucks will be based at Bury St Edmunds, Nottingham and at Abingdon in Oxfordshire. Deliveries will be made to Greene King’s pubs as well as to independent outlets, with up to 20 drops a day being made. Most deliveries are relatively local to the trucks’ operating bases and, as a result, annual mileages will be modest at around 35,000 miles.

Paul Brett, Fleet Manager for Greene King, says that he’s pleased with the new DAFs. “They look great in the new liveries and should certainly turn a few heads. In terms of their performance, we’ve always found DAFs to be reliable and good on fuel and the service back-up is very good, both through our local DAF dealer Chassis Cab and from the dealers near to our depots.”

Ipswich based Chassis Cab supplied the trucks, which are covered by a five-year Repair & Maintenance contract. With the vehicles being dispersed across three locations, local DAF dealers will be used for the periodic safety inspections, MoT preparation and repairs. To minimise downtime, work will be carried out overnight or at weekends with the dealers collecting and returning the vehicles.

The DAFs are a mix of 6x2 rear-steer CF75 FAN models at 26 tonnes gvw and two-axle LF55s at 18 tonnes. Although there’s a 4.3 tonne payload difference between the two types with the FANs able to carry 16.4 tonnes, volume is a more important factor and with a deck length of 8075 mm (26 feet 6 inches), compared to the 6858 mms (22 feet 6 inches) of the LF55s, the six wheelers offer almost 18% more space.

With all unloading being by hand it was important to keep the deck height low and Harvey Coachbuilders of Attleborough used galvanised steel crossbearers fixed directly to the frame to achieve this. The floor uses hardwood with a 12 mm layer of birch plywood to offer protection against damage from barrels being dropped onto it and an aluminium skin on the roof helps to keep the heat of the sun away from the load.

Three heavy duty LED interior strip lights provide good illumination to provide additional safety to the crew when unloading. A reversing camera provides further safety.

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