Both 3C15s, and replacing Canters operating at the same gross weight, they’re regularly used to tow trailers laden with excavators or other items of plant. The newcomers were acquired through dealership Enza, which handles Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles as well as Mitsubishi Fusos. It additionally supplied Anvale with five Mercedes Vito 109CDI vans.

Moving up the weight scale, Retford, Nottinghamshire-based animal feed and grain merchant W H Ottley has acquired a 7C18 7.5-tonne Canter curtainsider. It can handle a payload of almost 4.0 tonnes. “That’s a lot more than we’d get on any other 7.5-tonner,” says Walter Moseley, who owns the business.

Canter is also making its presence felt as a recovery vehicle at 7.5 tonnes. J & J Conversions of Andover, Hants, has put six 7C18Ds into service in that capacity and is making them available for hire. They’re all crew cabs and each one is fitted with J & J’s Predator aluminium slide-bed body.

Merseyside’s Recovery North West is now running a 7C18D crew cab with an alloy slide-bed bed body plus a rear-mounted spectacle lift. Both were fitted by Worldwide Recovery Systems of Hertford.