General Manager John Wilton explains “With many years of providing vehicles to the mining and construction industries, we saw the need for 4WD vehicles capable of carrying a reasonable sized crew and equipment.”

After comparing a number of different options, NationWide opted to have a 10-seater coach style module built on the Isuzu NPS300 4x4 cab chassis with a 2.5m rear tray.

The coach module provides a high level of passenger comfort, with coach style seating with seat belts, fully ducted air conditioning, and the bus body complies with Australian Design Rules for roll over protection. John says that with half a dozen or so already on fleet, NationWide knows the Isuzu NPS300 is a proven off highway performer, and a truck that can handle any work environment.

NationWide’s fleet of Isuzu NPS300’s already work as 17 seater buses, fitters rigs, service trucks and of course flatbeds in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland on gas pipelines, mines, dam construction and rail infrastructure projects, giving a good cross section of industry use.

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John said “All in all, we are confident this unit provides a cost effective solution to the ever challenging function of moving people and equipment around mine and work sites in a safe and expeditious manner.”

Further proof of NationWide Hire’s innovation in providing unique truck solutions for clients needs is their ‘3-way’ tipper crane truck on an Isuzu FTR900 Crew Cab. This truck will also be fitted with dual gauge ‘HiRail’, enabling it to work anywhere on the New South Wales, Victorian, South Australian and West Australian rail networks.

In addition to the new MultiCab and HiRail 3-way tipper, NationWide Hire are also introducing the 6x6 International brand trucks to be used as fuel, service and crane trucks to their fleet. These ‘go anywhere’ trucks enable the efficient fuelling of plant and equipment virtually anywhere and avoid the pitfalls of using highway trucks in an off highway environment for this critical function.

As John explained, “Through our business, we found there is no 6x6 truck available in Australia that is particularly suited to our harsh environment. When we heard International had recommenced building 6x6s, based on the robust 5600 model, we were very interested. Our Managing Director, Doug Padman went to the International factory in the States to have a closer look at the truck, and, liking what he saw, ordered two trucks for our fleet.

“The beauty of these trucks is that they are big, basic, bonneted trucks, and come standard with Allison Automatic transmissions – a very big plus in today’s mining and project environment.”

John added that International have been gaining a lot of publicity recently with the launch of their CXT 4x4 – the largest pick-up in the world.

The overall fleet of NationWide Hire’s fleet of vehicles includes crane, fuel, service, lube and water trucks in 4x2, 4x4, 6x4, 6x6 & 4x4 buses & MultiCabs.