Trucksmith has announced the appointment of Martin Hargreaves to the South West field sales team at its Devon headquarters.
The award-winning van converter has seen double digit revenue growth in the past 12 months and the role will broaden the capabilities of its developing sales team.

Martin joins as Territory Field Sales Executive, and brings 11 years of experience with him in sales in the South West. He was formerly in sales management at retailer CarphoneWarehouse, running stores in locations such as Exeter and Barnstaple.

He said: “My experience in building and managing customer relationships will come to the fore in this role, since Trucksmith has the ability to tailor van conversions to any number of customer uses – from bread vans and delivery vehicles to showrooms and mobile libraries.
“I’ll be focusing on maintaining an unbeatable support network for our wide-ranging customers, including the Renault, Vauxhall and Fiat dealerships where our vehicles are available.”

The role at a commercial body builder like Trucksmith is particularly appropriate since Martin enjoys body building of a different kind – training as an amateur strongman in regional competitions.

Daniel Trebble, Managing Director at Trucksmith, said: “This is an exciting period for Trucksmith, with several new product launches this year, and Martin’s skills will be hugely valuable. We are focused on service as a business and his ability to form strong relationships at the highest level will play a key part in our client strategy.”

Trucksmith was recently voted Van Converter of the Year 2017 by readers of What Van? Magazine, and launched its new Renault Trafic Target dropside at the Commercial Vehicle Show in April 2017.

Award-winning van converter Trucksmith has literally put cutting-edge technology at the heart of its production process.

The Devon-based manufacturer has invested £1m in the latest metal cutting fibre laser technology from Amada. The equipment has enabled Trucksmith to automate production of sheet metal components for their market-leading low-loading Luton vans – which include the Renault Master LoLoader®, Vauxhall Movano KneeHi® and Fiat Ducato Canniloader®.

Daniel Trebble, Managing Director at the pioneering family-run business, said: “We have been innovating for more than two decades, and as technology has improved we have been first to embrace it. Fibre laser is a great example of how we can produce highly accurate components – even through the night using a fully automated cutting schedule– to enable our skilled people to build vehicles more efficiently.

“The technology we’ve chosen is not only more productive but also energy efficient, since it enables 2kW of laser power to profile steel components that would previously have required a 4kW laser.This new capability has been integral in our development of a brand-new dropside van we’re launching at the Commercial Vehicle Show in Birmingham later this month – the Renault Trafic Target.”
The Amada laser technology can cut through 25mm sheet steel, has continuous variable beam control across every thickness of material and a cutting speed of over 4700 ipm.

Trucksmith has also installed an Amada ASLUL fully automated loading system for the laser cutter, capable of storing and auto-loading up to nine tonnes of raw sheet metal and processed components. The system also includes an Amada press brake with 3D touch screen control panel to enable manual finishing of components.

Trucksmith was recently voted Van Converter of the Year 2017 by readers of What Van? Magazine, and as well as the new Renault Trafic Target is set to launch a low-loading Nissan Luton in the summer.