Ermin Plant Hire delivers with striking new 26 tonner

Gloucester-based Ermin Plant Hire has added a new Mercedes-Benz Axor 6x2 to its fleet, mounted with an Andover Trailers plant body with double-cranked beavertail and fuel-saving fold-forward ramps.

The striking ‘golden yellow’ rear-steer rigid with front and rear air suspension replaces a 1996 M-registration truck, which also featured an Andover Trailers plant body, and will operate across the company’s six depots. It joins a 28 strong commercial vehicle fleet used to guarantee the fast and efficient delivery of more than 3,000 items of plant and tools to customers across an area spanning Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire and South Wales.

The Axor is being used to deliver the largest items of plant, which range from eight tonne excavators to telehandlers, forklifts, boom lifts, cherry pickers and dump trucks.

Neil Jones, Operations Director of Ermin Plant Hire, explains: “Our delivery fleet operates across six busy depots, meaning maximum reliability and uptime is critical.  We treat our trucks the same as we do our plant, picking suppliers very carefully.

“Our previous Andover Trailers plant bodies have performed well and lived up to the demands of making multiple deliveries each day.  The design team built the body to our precise specifications, so it’s a perfect match for our requirements.”

The 9.3m body features a hardwood floor with 1m wide x 2.5m long hydraulic fold-forward ramps, which can be lowered flat onto the deck to minimise aerodynamic drag on the road.  Hydraulic steady legs ensure a stable platform when loading and unloading plant, whilst a remote and radio-control Ramsey BH550 hydraulic winch is mounted on the front bulkhead to assist with loading.

Other key features incorporated into the bodywork include five pairs of lashing points on the outer edge of the body, plus three centrally located lashing rings.  A rugged plastic toolbox and an open-top chain tray have also been incorporated underneath the bodywork, whilst a drawbar coupling is added to enable operation with a small 3.5 tonne trailer.

Ermin Plant Hire is a privately owned company, established for more than 40 years, and has branches situated in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Stroud, Cirencester, Worcester and Ross-on-Wye.  Its customer base includes civil engineers, local authorities, public utilities, factories, farmers, landscape gardeners and private DIY and gardening enthusiasts.