By its own admission, LC Vehicle Hire prefers to let its trucks do the talking when it comes to matters of company PR. That said, the delivery of a new fleet of Thompsons-bodied vehicles to Excalon marks an anniversary milestone for the Yorkshire rental company, now celebrating its 50th year in business.

"The basis of our success is doing what we say we’ll do" says LC’s Business Development Manager Paul Bumford, adding that "we go out of our way to make it as easy as possible for people to do business with us. With LC, one phone call fixes all - and happy customers usually come back for more!"

With over 1,600 commercial vehicles now in its fleet, LC Vehicle Hire’s biggest growth area is now in the construction sector. Manchester - based Excalon’s new 12 strong fleet includes six 8x4 tipper / grabs and five 7.5 tonne tippers all fitted with Thompsons bodies, plus a 26 tonne beavertail plant and machinery carrier built by sister company Charlton.

"Excalon shows the way modern operators are moving" continues Paul "because they allow us to source and deliver the whole vehicle package, even through to designing and applying the livery. Having trust like this from our customers is a real vote of confidence in LC Vehicle Hire. This ‘one stop shop’ way of doing business not only places maximum emphasis on our expertise, but also improves our efficiency by reducing administration and speeding up delivery."

As LC’s preferred tipper bodybuilder, Thompsons understands perfectly this closely integrated business philosophy. "Thompsons are the experts in what they do" adds Paul, "they know what we want and what our priorities are, so we expect them to deliver the most complete and best performing tipper package available."

With its head office in Leeds and depots in Bradford, Barnsley, Sherburn in Elmet and Salford, LC Vehicle Hire needs trucks that are highly specified and totally on top of their job. As a result, Thompsons all-steel Loadmaster is LC’s tipper body of choice, many finding their way onto a multitude of 6x4 and 8x4 chassis in the LC fleet. A majority of these are also fitted with cranes and grabs, with all such ancillary equipment also being fitted by Thompsons.

"Typically LC runs its trucks for four years” says Simon Shields, Thompsons Group Sales Manager based in nearby Blackburn. “In that time, their trucks need to cost them as little as possible, whilst also having the highest possible residual value. Thompsons proven standards of design and manufacturing quality gives LC a real advantage, in addition to the fact that in conjunction with our sister company Charlton, we can build every type of construction industry body possible."

In the last couple of years, Thompsons has supplied over 200 tipper bodies to LC Vehicle Hire. As well as the Loadmaster, other models include the dropside Workmaster and Roadmaster for 18 and 7.5 tonne gvw chassis respectively.