Disc-braked trailer boom
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• by Bryan Jarvis
"By the middle of next year Britain's take-up of new trailers with disc-braked axles will cross the 50% mark against drums and by 2002 it will have risen to somewhere in the order of That is the view of Michael Wensch, Discos System Solutions general manager, stated during last week's official opening of its Chester sales office.
"It's taken us three years to establish ourselves as an independent trailer axle supplier,' he said. Now we can compete with the likes of BPW, Mentor and SAF."
Behind Wensch is a formidable sales and engineering team, all recruited from within Mentor's UK group.
Richard Flackett, head of UK sales, is a former Mentor regional manager. The technical team includes engineering manager Les Price, a former technical director; and Paul Griffiths (suspensions) and Paul Pentin (axles), both formerly senior engineers with Mentor.
Flackett compares the growing interest in disc-braked trailers with the relatively rapid switch from steel to air suspension.
"And we don't have a drum brake production to worry about so we can afford to be aggressive," he adds.
Although keen to be seen as an independent supplier of the Discos/ Hendrickson axle and suspension package, or simply axles, he's happy to exploit the DaimlerChrysler link.
From its Chester design office DSS UK will be looking at the
different applications, with a range of ride heights and frame widths. "We're anxious to show fleets and trailer manufacturers what we're capable of," says Flackett. Dr Christof Traidl, sales and purchasing director for DaimlerChrysler's Powerbrain Business Unit, says: 'The group intends to conquer all European markets and get a foothold in both the US and Asian markets—especially Japan, which also supplies most of the Asian regions."
But its immediate aim is to become the sole axle supplier to its US marque Freightliner, as well as the likes of Kavistar and major North American trailer builders.