BUILDING UP ADELAIDE: CITY CRANE TRUCKS & ISUZU CLIMB TO THE TOP

Tray tops, tilt trays, self-loaders, semi-trailers, and arguably Australia’s biggest crane truck—featuring the Hiab 800E7 crane—City Crane Trucks Transport & Crane Truck Hire, located just north of Adelaide’s city centre, offers a service like no other. Running a fleet of over 50 crane and transport trucks for hire, the locally grown business caters to industries from construction through to government projects, mining and local transport, with no job too big or too small for this full-service fleet.

“Your biggest task is our easiest challenge,” said City Crane Managing Director, Bruno Simone. “And we’re happy to take on anything with our fleet. “But we’ve managed to get a foothold in the bigger jobs in the commercial and government sectors because of our compliance to standards.

“We invest a lot into this, making sure our inventory and business is up to standard, and that we’re continuing to buy and maintain the right equipment to allow us to take on a broad range of work.”

Compliance comes in many forms, but Bruno noted a key issue for any crane and transport hire company was avoiding any overloading situations, with weight distribution across the truck chassis an ongoing concern.

Needing a diverse line-up of trucks (from light-duty all the way through to heavy-duty prime movers) he’s found some favourites in Isuzu’s model range; from the metro-savvy NNR 45-150 with AMT (sitting at the flexible driver 4,500 kg GVM point with 8,000 kg GCM capacity) to Isuzu’s heavy lifters in the GXD 165-350 Auto Prime Mover and FYJ 300-350 Auto (featuring 16,500 kg GVM and 30,000 kg GVM respectively).

That’s not to forget City Cranes’ medium-duty workhorses, the work-hard, die-hard FTR 150-260 Auto and FVY 240-300 Auto, sporting long wheelbases and rated to a GCM of 36,000 kg in the larger model. This focus on purchasing equipment, carefully specified for application and updated with the latest bells and whistles in technology and safety standards, gives City Cranes an edge over the competition, according to Bruno.

“Having the right trucks for the job simply means we get the work we want, which leads us to buying and maintaining the fleet… it’s a repeating cycle that gives us an advantage,” he explained.

“Our Isuzus are our versatile day-to-day trucks. They may start off in the morning helping with a house renovation, then deliver an air conditioner and are off to deliver scaffolding by the end of the day. “At the moment they’re doing a lot of infrastructure and roadworks,” Bruno added.

“We’ve put up around 85 per cent of the light poles around Adelaide so far, which is great in the sense that we’re helping to build up the city. “We buy Isuzu based on their reliability and our relationship with the dealer… we started out with Isuzu and they haven’t let us down so far.”

Isuzu’s FYJ 300-350 8x4 and GXD 165-350 Auto Prime Mover are serious performers in the crane hire application, taking care of heavier day-to-day missions for City Crane Trucks.

With generous power of 257 kW (345 hp) @ 2,000 rpm and torque of 1,422 Nm @ 1,400 rpm, the FYJ has grunt to get the job done. A supremely useful GVM of 30,000 kg and GCM of 45,000 kg makes for a tool that City Crane Trucks’ clients can trust to finish the job on time and safely—and on the right side of all Chain of Responsibility and compliance obligations.

“Our heavy rigids are fitted with a seven to nine metre tray with a crane attached, usually Palfinger, while our GXD prime movers are fitted with a variety of crane bogies,” Bruno said. “These Isuzu trucks have great power and payload suited to the jobs we’ve bought them for, and that hasn’t changed after all these years of buying Isuzu—the range continues to provide what we need.

“Our relationship with the dealership is great, every time I pick up a truck, I seem to put in an order in for a new one!” This equates to quite a few Isuzu trucks, given Bruno started out in the year 2000. He jokes he could be seen buying a new truck around every three months from the team at North East Isuzu —earning City Crane Trucks the title of largest transport and crane hire truck fleet in South Australia in the bargain.

Keeping customers close to home, the North East Isuzu dealership and account manager, Jason Pinneri, have ensured Isuzu remains a core part of Bruno’s fleet, focusing on key features that make the job easier (and safer) for drivers and the business.

Beginning at visibility, Bruno said the combination of Isuzu’s elevated seat position and large windows remove the risk of blind spots around the vehicle, making it a safe bet working around crowded capital city streets.

The option of fully Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) or bullet-proof Allison automatic transmission (depending on model variant) in City Cranes’ chosen trucks means operators can zip around Adelaide with less fatigue in heavy traffic and stop-start situations.

Where to from here, for a company that appears to have their fleet management down to a fine art?

“I’ll still be getting in an Isuzu truck once a week to do a run with the boys,” Bruno sums it up. “I love to get out and see the customers and maintain the network that got me here.”