Professional Recovery 354

SPECIALFEATURE
vehicles using a crane on a beam
that conveniently ran outside
their building. With the aid of
a block and tackle the heavy
components could be raised
and the truck reversed below,
the first Interstater was mostly
assembled outside. The first
product was sold for £4500.00
and interestingly that first one
was also sold to C&S Motors.
Boniface started out
very much as a one man
business, when did you
take your first
employee on?
Ken Landymore started in June
1982 he stayed with me all the
way till he retired much later. I’m
proud that a lot of people have
stayed with us for a long time,
I’ve got a lot of long-standing
employees who have been here
for many years.
How did your business
progress?
Bill Jackson had been working
in the USA for some time under
the name of International
Wreckers so it was natural that
my products would go over
there. The first Interstater for
the USA was shipped over in January 1983 in kit
form, and I flew over for and did the installation,
it was installed on a Mack chassis and had a
body built by a fire engine truck manufacturer
local to International Wreckers base in Florida.
The complete outfit was displayed at the Florida
Tow Show in April 1983, as you can imagine at
that time in America, it was all twin boom, single
stick booms, all that kind of product. This new
First Sidewinder being tested
equipment that had been made in the UK sold
well through the 80’s up to when unfortunately,
Wreckers International in the UK went bust in the
early 90’s. However, from Texas to Canada I had
made some great contacts that would help me in
future years.
In terms of location, we’d moved from that little
single unit to a bigger corrugated iron building,
which was another military camp that had been
R B TRUCKS LTD
R B Trucks
would like to
congratulate
Boniface
Engineering
on their
40th Anniversary
Station Yard, The Causeway, Stow Bridge, Kings Lynn, Norfolk. PE34 3PH
Tel: 01366 382528
www.rbtrucks.co.uk Email: rbtrucks@btconnect.com
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