York spends £2.5m
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• York Trailer will be spending close to 22.5 million on new manufacturing facilities and trailer production before the end of the year.
The biggest investment within this latest financial package is 21.8 million on building 180 new trailers for United Rental, part of the York Trailer Sales Division.
In an exclusive interview with CM, York Trailer Holdings' managing director Jim Davies says he expects the York Group to finish 1986 with profits not far behind its previous record best year of 22.7 million, which was achieved in the mid-seventies, under much easier trading conditions.
Group turnover will be around 245 million in 1986 and York Trailer will also be launching a new Freightmaster model this year.
Davies expects the UK trailer market to finish slightly up on last year with around 10,000 units sold. Importers will take a 20% share says Davies, although "Their business is now falling off'.
York is currently claiming a market share of above 24%.
Despite the relatively slow overall market growth, Davies predicts a "very brisk" period in reefer sales over the next two years following the recent amendments to C&U regulations (CM, July 26), which allow reefer widths to go up to 2.58m.
Production at York's Harelaw plant, which builds the Thermostar refrigerated trailer range, will shortly be increased to 20 a month. "Quite heady numbers, so far as the reefer industry is concerned," says Davies.
York is looking to capture a 32% share of the overall fridge trailer market which is currently running at between 650-750 units a year.
However Davies predicts a dramatic decline in the demand for thin-wall reefers due to the relaxation in width laws, leaving only those operators with a need for captive pallet systems as the remaining thinwall customers.
Production of tipping semitrailers at York's Northallerton factory is still running well below maximum capacity, although Davies says the market for tipping trailers is "dismal" and continues to be affected by the fluctuations caused by the increase in lorry weights and the end of the miners' strike.
York's new Magnum Trailer, however, has been well received and an average of 10 a month are now being built at Northallerton.