INDIANAPOLIS, IN. While the big truck OEMs tend to garner the most floor space and attention (thanks to the marketing budgets of billion-dollar global corporations) at the NTEA Work Truck Show, the emphasis of the annual event remains on ‘work’—for, when it comes to getting the job done, the chassis is the platform, the rolling stock that truck-body builders design their customer-specific solutions around.
And while work truck buyers certainly have their preferences as to the badge on the grille, it’s the task-built equipment, typically added away from the vehicle production line by any of the hundreds of upfitters throughout North America, that determines whether or not the job—construction, utility service, snow removal, landscaping, public safety, forestry, waste management, and on and on—gets done right.
So even as attendees at the Work Truck Show this year once again the enjoyed high-profile presentations and show floor flash from the truck OEMs, the real deals were being lined up elsewhere: “Here’s the work I do—can your truck body help me do it better?”
The gallery above features some basic snapshots from the body-builder displays, but for complete coverage the 2018 Work Truck Show—trucks, bodies, components, manufacturing technologies—see the April print edition of Trailer/Body Builders magazine.
