Marketplace — Pick-Ups & Dropsides

Date: Monday, January 28, 2008

Yuejin

When we visited last year's Moscow Auto Show we were astonished by the number of Chinese-built double cabs on display built by companies we'd barely heard of such as Zhongxing (it makes the Grand Tiger) and Changfeng Yangzi (it makes the Fine and the Flying).

They struggle to meet mandatory Euro-4 exhaust emission levels, however — especially so far as their diesel engines are concerned — so it's likely to be sometime before they appear in Britain.

One Chinese manufacturer that is active in the UK, however, is Yuejin, with a 138hp 2.4-litre petrol-powered double cab on offer with a conversion that allows it to run on liquefied petroleum gas in a bid to broaden its appeal.

Tata

If Tata does take over Land Rover one wonders how long it will be before Land Rover dealers start to sell Tata's stylish-looking Xenon. Not marketed in Britain as yet, it's produced in both single- and double cab guise, as a 4x2 and a 4x4, and with a Euro-4 compliant 140hp 2.2-litre diesel.

Yank Tanks

A 2.2-litre lump is unlikely to have much appeal to American pick-up customers should Xenon ever be marketed Stateside. They're more likely to favour engines with two-and-a-half to three times the capacity and they still buy the vehicles they love in substantial quantities.

US models such as such as Chevrolet's Silverado, Dodge's Ram and Ford's F-150 can be a good bet for UK customers at present given the weakness of the once-mighty US dollar against the pound. On the downside they're likely to cost you a fortune in fuel, but they'll certainly get you noticed; if that's what you want.

BiK Taxation

Double Cabs have become increasingly popular in recent years as tax-efficient alternatives to the company car. Because they're classed as goods vehicles VAT is reclaimable if they have a payload in excess of 1,000kg and the driver is viewed in the same way as the driver of a company van when it comes to personal taxation.

Private use of a double cab is treated as a £3,000 a year benefit, with £500 added if the employer provides free fuel, and the driver is taxed on these sums accordingly.

It's worth bearing in mind, however, that travelling from home to work and back in your pick-up — with a stop on the way to buy a newspaper and a packet of mints — is not viewed as private mileage. If that's all you ever do with it, then you'll have no tax liability. Use it for the weekly trip to the supermarket and you will.

Bear in mind too that while nobody likes to pay income tax, the amount you'll pay for the private use of a double cab is roughly one-third of what you'll pay if you elect to run a four-wheel drive SUV like Nissan's X-Trail instead.

If you are self-employed then you do not of course pay company van/pick-up tax; but you can still reclaim VAT on your vehicle if you are VAT-registered.

Dropsides

Two of the main drawbacks of a pick-up's cargo area are that the sides are fixed and the wheel boxes intrude into the load space. As an alternative a number of manufacturers offer vehicles with dropside bodies that clearly avoid the first limitation, and with cargo beds that sit above the wheels so that space is not stolen.

As a consequence the loading height is comparatively high, but a 4x4 pick-up's loading height tends to be high too because of the vehicle's need for sufficient ground clearance should the driver decide to take it off road.

The majority of dropsides used in the UK have bodies constructed by domestic bodybuilders such as Telford-based Ingimex.

Often sold by a light commercial manufacturer combined with the chassis as a ready-to-go-to-work package, they typically feature sides and a tailboard made from anodised aluminium to keep the body's weight down and to maintain a smart appearance. As well as being heavy and requiring painting, steel sides can rust and start to look very tatty very quickly.

Other more-or-less-standard features include a plywood floor — typically 15mm thick — coated with anti-slip phenolic resin. The floor usually sits on galvanised steel cross-members and bearers that run lengthways.

Bodies usually also feature a bulkhead with a mesh or punched steel infill topped off with hinged stops on each side. That way you can lean a ladder against it and the ladder won't slide off and crash to the ground. Load tie-down points are generally provided too.

Ingimex

For example, the dropside body supplied to Volkswagen by Ingimex for Crafter to be fitted as part of VW's Engineered to Go ready-to-go-to-work programme introduced last year features four 125kg-capacity lashing points on the bulkhead. They're accompanied by recessed folding-type deck rings with a capacity of 500kg apiece.

Ingimex has got its feet firmly under the table at a number of other manufacturers. For instance, Renault Trucks has just introduced ready-to-go-to-work dropside versions of Maxity — in effect a rebadged Nissan Cabstar — and Master with Ingimex as its partner. Citroën too sources dropside bodies from Ingimex to be fitted to Relay as part of its award-winning Ready to Run scheme; Ford and Vauxhall are customers too.

A dropside body of the aforementioned type mounted on a 3.5-tonne chassis will typically handle a payload of up to 1,500kg depending on the vehicle's wheelbase and exact specifications.

Factory-Fitted

Some manufacturers offer factory-built dropside bodies instead. Among them are Nissan — on the Cabstar — and Piaggio, whose forward-control Porter pick-up falls into the half-tonne-plus payload category.

It's up for grabs with two different bodies. The standard offering has a cargo deck 1,330mm wide and 1,980mm long while its stable-mate's deck dimensions are 1,400mm and 2,325mm respectively.

Porter is also marketed as a van — it scooped What Van?'s most recent Microvan of the Year award — a tipper and an MPV. No matter which model you choose you'll find it's powered by a 64hp 1.3-litre petrol engine married to a five-speed gearbox, unless you stipulate the electric variant with a range of around 85 miles between recharges.

What's more, Porter can be ordered as a 4x4 as well as with two-wheel drive. That's quite a compendium of choices for such a small vehicle.

VERDICT

There's no shortage of choice for potential customers in this market, but it's a shame that manufacturers, bar one, seem to have abandoned the 500kg-payload sector in the UK.