Platform and tarpaulin bodies
Fully configurable. Built around your needs.
Open aluminium platforms with 400 mm dropsides, and curtain-side tarpaulin bodies built on the same structure. For loads that go on from the side or overhead — palletised goods, building materials, plant and anything a fixed box can't take.
Dry box, tarpaulin or platform?
Property | Dry box | Tarpaulin | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|
Overhanging or craned loads | No | Sides down, load from above | Yes |
Temperature | Foam core buffers the load | None | None |
Body weight | Heaviest of the three | Under 210 kg on 3.5 t | Lightest |
Security | Rigid lockable panel | A cover, not a barrier | None |
Weather protection | Sealed | Covered | None — sheet the load |
Loading | Rear doors; side doors if specified | Full-length curtain, one side or both | Any direction, including overhead |
All three carry general freight. What separates them is how the load gets on and how much protection it needs once it's there — and that decides the answer more often than the cargo does.
A forklift at every stop and palletised freight — tarpaulin. Full-length side access is the entire job; a rear door turns a two-minute drop into a ten-minute one.
Roll cages, a tail lift, hand-loaded from the rear — dry box. Side access buys you nothing, and you get a sealed, wipe-clean interior instead.
High-value or theft-sensitive freight — check out our dry box bodies. A curtain is a cover, not a barrier. We'd rather say so than have you find out.
Craned loads, plant, steel, anything that overhangs the deck — platform. Nothing above the floor to work around.
Maximum payload on a 3.5-tonne chassis — tarpaulin or platform. An aluminium deck and a curtain weigh a fraction of five insulated panels.
Carrying anything that needs a set temperature? None of these three - check out our insulated and refrigerated bodies.
One base body, two configurations
Platform and tarpaulin bodies are the same body. An anodised aluminium platform on a reinforced aluminium subframe, with 400 mm dropsides on three sides — then the tarpaulin superstructure goes on top of it, or it doesn't.
That means the deck, the floor and the sides are identical either way, and a platform can be specified with the superstructure added later.
01
Panel
GRP sandwich panels, produced on our own line rather than bought in. Polyester-glass laminate skins bonded over a rigid foam core under pressure, so the panel carries the load instead of hanging on an internal frame. Flat inside, sealed and wipe-clean — no internal ribs for dirt to sit behind.
Sections are specified per model rather than one panel across the range — 24 mm on a 3.5-tonne body, heavier as the body grows. Because we make the panel, thickness and skin weight are set to the job, and a replacement for a body we built five years ago comes off the same line.
02
Floor structure and subframe
Aluminium profiles up to 7 tonnes GVW; steel above it. Plywood floor deck over the structure — 15 mm birch on van chassis.
The subframe material changes at 7 tonnes, and so does the configurator: exact chassis selection below, gross weight class above. Same engineering boundary, in both places.
03
Access
Rear portal with the door arrangement specified: hinged doors, roller shutter, or flap and lift platform. Side doors where the round needs them. Anodised aluminium profiles throughout. The rear panel is built heavier than the walls — 27 mm against 24 on a 3.5-tonne body — with an aluminium kickplate across the sill. The rear is where a distribution body takes its damage, and it's specified accordingly.
04
Equipment
Tail lifts, LED interior lighting, lashing rails and load restraint, internal partitions, rearview cameras.
How it's built
What you can configure
Everything that changes the quote sits in one place. On chassis from 3.5 to 7 tonnes, you select the exact model and the configurator offers only the body dimensions that the chassis permits, worked from the manufacturer's own bodybuilder guidelines; above 7 tonnes, you start from the gross weight class.
From there: internal length, width and height, floor, rear portal and door arrangement, side doors, tail lift, LED lighting, lashing rails, partitions and accessories. The specification comes back with the body weight to ±4% and a price you can quote as it stands.
