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Solving other • peoples problems

15th January 1971
Page 68
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Page 68, 15th January 1971 — Solving other • peoples problems
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

A BODYBUILDER strikes a knotty problem in meeting a customer's specification and either hasn't the skilled staff or the time to give it the attention it needs for a really good design solution. A commercial vehicle salesman knows he could clinch a sale if only he could give the operator a clear illustration of the complete truck he has in mind. An overseas company wants something very special in commercial vehicle bodywork but finds it difficult to detail its requirements. A prestige own-account company wants to maintain its image, but at a lower price for vehicles than it could afford in the past.

Such problems are meat and drink to Commercial Vehicle Design Services, of Uplands Close, Benfleet, Essex, the brainchild of 30-year-old A. A. Hodgkins AMIBCM, AMBEI, who left his job as production manager of J. H. Sparshatts to start his own consultancy company in June last year.

The unusual feature of CVDS's services is their comprehensiveness. The concern will, for instance, produce preliminary sketches, specifications, finished artwcirk, scale drawings and dyelines, full-scale bodybuilders' "sticks", cutting instruction lists, buying schedules, body weight and axle load calculations and advice on material selection. Some of the jobs which have come Mr Hodgkins' way, illustrated here by preliminary drawings from his design notebook, provide interesting examples of trends in the industry.

Throughout the industry, more and more bodybuilders are turning to the employment of unskilled labour to keep costs down in a highly competitive field, and so become more and more committed to producing bodies which can be constructed with minimal craft content. This means precut sections, simple joints and fixings—in fact, as Mr Hodgkins sees it, this is all part of a growing movement towards the kit body for all but the specialized types. He foresees the day when in coachbuilding shops the bodies will come "over the stores counter", a collection of precut parts and an accompanying set of fittings.

Already, the aluminium companies are happy to give discounts on orders for cut-to-size material, as it enables them to economize on offcuts and wastage.

There are, of course, British bodybuilders whose crafted products and specials can match any in the world, but for the great run of ordinary load-carriers the trend is towards simplification and cost-cutting. Which need not mean a drop in quality. Another great pressure is on weight-saving—for three main reasons. First, the obvious one of providing for more payload and lower fuel consumption on any size of vehicle: secondly to get below the 30cwt unladen /3.5 tons plated limits for 0 licensing; and thirdly (and growing .fast in importance) to keep vehicles below 3 tons unladen and so obviate the need for an hgvlicensed driver. Some operators are now clearly buying chassis well below the weight class that they would previously have specified, and then pressing the bodybuilder to keep the body super-light. In some recent examples encountered by CVDS, the desired weight has been achieved only by having, say, a "van" with no panelling—just the framework to contain the load.

By far the greatest part of CVDS's work :o date has been on special bodies, and -nuch of it has been for a few particular lody companies, as the drawings indicate. But the work has included swap bodies, tan-to-coach conversions, mobile libraries, airsick vehicles, a drawbar bus railer, alloy boxvans, armoured cars, utons, crew-carrying tractive units, barley

trailers, market vehicles, integral cabs, luxury coaches and, not least, a mobile bar for Allied Breweries. Some of these are depicted in the illustrations.

Not illustrated is an interested standard market vehicle body for Hultrak designed in response to repeated requests from traders. Structured in steel, it has PVC reinforced curtains, and heavy D-section rubber rubrails along the sides to withstand fork-lift truck impacts. The body is 17ft long, with 6ft 6in. headroom, and an identical body is designed for a matching drawbar trailer.

The list—by no means exhaustive—confirms Mr Hodgkins' assessment that there was room for body design consultancy —with time to tackle individual problems in an atmosphere removed from the pressing matters of day-to-day work and the constant interruptions of a busy factory. His experience and talent have served him well: he was with Glover, Webb and Liversidge for about six years, had two years as a senior draughtsman with Duple, was an illustrator for Ford and then chief designer for RTS (Hackney) Ltd before joining Sparshatts.

One of the CVDS's particular fortes is the ability to reduce an artist's impression into precise production drawings. Mr Hodgkins borrows a phrase from David Bache of Rover to describe his aim: "To conceive new ideas with flair and imagination and bring them to economic reality".

Predictions Some of those new ideas are to be seen in a collection of "forecast drawings" published here. Far removed from the familiar futuristic flights of fancy, they represent hardheaded predictions based on experience.

For the 'moment, however, most of the "flair and imagination" is necessarily devoted to current bodywork, and the efforts of specialists such as A. A. Hodgkins will have benefits far beyond the specific designs in hand: once a bodybuilder or operator has been shown a better or cheaper way to solve a coachbuilding problem, it will tend to become part of his stock in trade.

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