Lights fantastic
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Looking for something out of the ordinary or hard to find? Then Stuart Wolstenholme at West Pennine Trucks is the man for you Stuart Wolstenholme, used sales manager at the Middleton, Manchester branch of Scania dealership West Pennine Trucks, has a reputation for stocking unusual and hard-to-find vehicles. But even he has never encountered anything quite as off-the-wall as the two heavily customised Scania tractor units he The interior of the recently found himself retailing. Scania R164 had been The oldest of the duo was a 2003 53-plate Scania R164 trimmed in contrasting 6x2, tag-axle V8 Topline that had seen well over £20,000 tan and cream leather spent on the interior alone.
"Everything was trimmed in contrasting tan and cream leather — and by everything I mean the headlining, doors, bunk, side panels and even the floor," he says.
Around £2,500 had been splashed out on the sound system, and a CB radio had been installed along with a Waeco roof-mounted auxiliary air-conditioning unit with remote control.
Cream and wood-effect paint had been carefully applied to the dashboard, switchgear and to every panel that was not already leather-clad.
Additional lighting The unit's exterior featured metallic blue paint with air-brushed Scania logos, twin vertical stainless steel exhausts, a stainless steel front bumper with marker lights and a Kelsa light bar with half-a-dozen Hella jumbo spotlights. Twin airhorns, polished alloy wheels, an alloy cab back panel infill, with airbrushed logos and additional lighting, as well as a stainless steel front bumper with marker lights were fitted, along with other eye-catching goodies.
"The chrome accent pieces and market lights were just too numerous to list and the entire truck was in show condition," says Wolstenholme.
The previous owner of the 2008-vintage Scania R500 6x2 V8 Topline that Wolstenholme also had in stock — "it's sold subject to finance" — clearly liked lights: lots of lights.
"It's got a Kelsa hi-bar with six spotlights, a Kelsa lo-bar with LED marker lights, a Kelsa rear bar with work lights, an illuminated headboard, an external sun visor with integral spotlights, and spot and fog lights mounted in the front bumper," he says. "When everything is lit up it looks like a Christmas tree."
All that is in addition to an alloy chequer plate for the chassis, alloy wheels, side skirts, and a full air-deflector kit with — you've guessed it — LED markers.
Wolstenholme is somewhat coy about revealing how much the stand-out Scanias sold for. "What I can say is that the R164 went for twice the price a standard model would fetch," he says.
That would, of course, not match the amount of money spent on it in what, one suspects, was a labour of love.
The two Scanias were offered for sale towards the end of what Wolstenholme says had not been too bad a year at all for West Pennine's used operation, despite the harsh economic climate. "We seem to have gone back to the sort of pattern of business we were doing prior to the 2008 financial crash and I've not had anybody refused finance all year," he says.
Plenty of interest Obtaining desirable stock is never easy, but Wolstenholme has 40 ex-fleet Scanias arriving this month. "Twenty of them are 2007-vintage R420 units while the rest include three P230 18-tonners, seven P320 26-tonners — all ten are no more than two years old — and 10 three-year-old R440 units on 59 plates," he says. The rigids are all curtainsiders with tail-lifts.
The 2007 Scanias have attracted plenty of interest from exporters — "I'm 90% certain I've already sold them," says Wolstenholme — who seem perfectly happy to accept Opticruise automated gearboxes, while four of the rigids have got new homes to go to before they even arrive.
The 40 new arrivals will appear in a yard that is somewhat short of stock. "We're well down on where we should be," he says.
As a consequence, Wolstenholme is carrying a number of Renaults — "18-tonne box vans" — and Volvo FMs alongside the Scanias, but stresses that such a mixture is not at all unusual for West Pennine "Only 60% to 65% of the 500 or so used trucks we sell annually are Scanias and at present we've even got a couple of Foden Alpha double-drive 26-tonners," he reports.
Something for everyone "One dates back to 2004, the other dates back to 2006 and they're both fitted with block grabs and tripledropside bodies. Even with their cranes they weigh no more than 11.75 tonnes apiece and I've had interest in the older one from an exporter."
Being in a position to offer something for just about every application and budget pays off says Wolstenholme. "It's something we're known for — we sold a fleet of prison vans a while back — and as one operator recently said to me: 'I know you'll always have a Scania available when I can afford a Scania and something else when I can't' "As yet, none of my regular customers have spoken to me about acquiring some late-registered Euro-5 trucks because they don't want to be among the first to switch to Euro-6 but I'm anticipating some inquiries soon." • THE SITUATION WITH PRICES "Prices are remaining pretty steady so far as late-plate trucks are concerned," says Wolstenholme. "At the other end of the age/price scale, cheaper older trucks are flying out of the door, in many cases for export.
"I had a 2005 Volvo in the other Monday and sold it the next day. A lot of this older stock is generated by part-exchanges, so not surprisingly they're always welcome.
"One thing we've also noticed though, is that a lot of operators these days will only buy a truck if they're 100% certain that they've won the contract they're going to use it on," he says. "Even if it's a truck with an unusual specification that's really hard to come by that would be ideal for the job in question they'll risk losing it rather than take it into ownership before they've got the deal signed.
"In the past they would have bought it anyway, on the basis that if they didn't win this contract then they might be able to use it on the next one they could be offered. They won't do that now."