MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
When Ready Rent a Car were looking to replace some of its incumbent 7.5 tonne box-bodied and drop-side rigids within its 1500-strong rental fleet, the Lincolnshire and Humber based company decided to specify the latest Isuzu Euro VI, N75.150 ‘Urban’ rigid trucks for its commerical vehicle rental fleet for the first time.
Explaining this shift towards the Isuzu marque, Nick Chanley, Director at Ready Rent a Car, said; “The initial motivation to change to Isuzu was driven by our desire for much improved fuel economy, matched to the need for our trucks to offer customers a far greater payload capacity. We had always associated Isuzu with being a strong, reliable brand, with a robust vehicle range. So when it came time to uprate some 7.5 tonners in the fleet, the new Isuzu Euro VI models were an ideal fit for our latest requirements.”
Ready Rent a Car initially took delivery of four long wheelbase Isuzu N75.150 4×2 ‘Urban’ rigids, all specified with the company’s popular Easyshift transmission. With each truck fitted with a standard 20ft box body, together with a rear column tail-lift, Ready Rent a Car immediately located one new Isuzu truck at each of its four depots in the Lincolnshire and Humber areas.
Following the success of the first four Isuzus in its fleet, Ready Rent a Car has subsequently taken delivery of a further four Isuzu 7.5t ‘Urban rigids. For this additional truck order, the new Isuzu trucks were specified with 20ft dropside bodies.
According to Nick Chanley; “We were really impressed with the overall specification of the new Isuzus, to the extent that we soon decided to add more of them to our fleet when we replaced the next batch of drop-side bodied rigids.”
Supplied to Ready Rent a Car by their local Isuzu Truck dealer, Thompson Commercials in Hull, the company is planning to run all these new Isuzus within its fleet for a five-year working life. Ready Rent a Car operates from four regional locations in Grimsby, Lincoln, Scunthorpe and Hull.
“Following the launch of the Isuzu 7.5 tonne ‘Urban’ at the CV Show last year, there was considerable interest in this appealing specification. It’s particularly pleasing to see new customers, such as Ready Rent a Car, join the ever-growing family of Isuzu customers who enjoy the proven operating benefits of payload and fuel economy from our vehicle range,” said Keith Child, marketing director at Isuzu Truck UK.
With the advent of the Euro VI regulations, Isuzu introduced two model options at 7.5 tonnes – the ‘Urban’ N75.150 with a four-cylinder 3.0 litre engine and the ‘Forward’ N75.190 with a four-cylinder 5.2 litre engine. The lighter weight 3.0 litre engine in the ‘Urban’ makes it about 200kgs lighter than its 5.2 litre ‘Forward’ partner. The ‘Forward’ N75.190 is ideal for operations that involve more arduous, longer and faster average-speed journeys, whilst the ‘Urban’ is better-suited for payload critical, stop-start, local distribution operations.
