The UK’s largest family-owned independent paper supplier, Elliott Baxter & Co Ltd, has added a pair of new 26 tonne Iveco Stralis Active Day rigids to its fleet to target new areas of business in the North of England.
One vehicle will operate from the company’s new branch in Birmingham which opened in March 2009, whilst the second will be based in Manchester. Together, the two Stralis AD260S33YP/S’s join a total fleet of 95 commercial vehicles and each benefit from rear-steering axles. Their arrival follows expenditure of over £1 million on new commercial vehicles in 2008, which included the arrival of eleven 18 tonne Eurocargos and eight similar 26 tonne Stralis rigids.
Supplied by Guildford-based Iveco dealer Grays Trucks, the two new Stralis AD’s have been designed specifically for short-haul distribution and are each fitted with Don-Bur slide-a-side bodies with cantilever tail-lifts. They will be used for delivering paper stock direct to commercial colour printers.
Phil Bourne, Logistics Director at Elliott Baxter, says: “We’ve been purchasing Iveco’s for many years and find the Stralis and Eurocargo models well suited to our fleet. They offer competitive whole life costs and we get excellent back-up from Grays Trucks, which work very hard to support us.
“Our new vehicles are normally built to order but these two models were available from stock complete with rear-steering axles. This is something we haven’t tried on the fleet before but we will be monitoring their performance closely and asking our drivers for detailed feedback,” he adds.
