Cover story: SB Civil - Hyundai

By: Lyndsay Whittle, Photography by: Lyndsay Whittle

Date: 28.04.2022

SB Civil ordered a fully built-up Hyundai Mighty EX6 to use as an internal courier vehicle

Looking very smart in SB Civil livery

With five trucks on the road, including two truck and trailer units, a six-wheeler, an eight-wheel transporter and eight excavators ranging from 1.7 to 23-tonnes along with 29 staff to operate them, SB Civil found themselves being literally run off their feet doing errands in order to keep the fleet moving.

The truck sits nicely on the road, even with 3 tonnes on its back

"It seemed like our operators were often having to climb out of their machines and hop into a company ute to head back to the depot to pick up grease cartridges, extra fuel and the like, plus there have been increasing times when we found that we needed the odd cubic metre or two of aggregate to finish off a job," says company director Josh Simpson.

Josh goes on to say that it didn’t make an awful lot of sense to take a six-wheeler away from a larger job to go and collect a couple of tonnes of product and then travel to the other side of town to deliver it, so the company managers started looking around for a purpose-built vehicle that would suit their needs.

"While attending Fieldays (National Agricultural Fieldays) at Mystery Creek last year (2021), my business partner and fellow company director Alistair McCourtie saw an EX6 truck on the Hyundai stand and liked the look of the truck’s lines," says Josh.

What started out as a casual chat with the guys manning the stand, gradually became a more-detailed discussion surrounding their actual requirements.

Grant Doull [who has since transferred to the position of manager – Hydrogen and Eco Commercial at Hyundai NZ] was manning the stand at the time, and he listened intently as Alistair described the type of vehicle the company was looking for, and quickly came up with some options that might work for SB Civil.

Nice clear-to-read dash cluster

"When we’d started looking seriously at purchasing a truck in the three- to five-tonne range, our initial thoughts were that we’d buy a cab and chassis and then find a bodybuilder to fabricate a tipper body and build and mount a decent-sized lockable toolbox to sit between the body and the cab," says Josh.

As time was of the essence to getting the unit on the road, Josh and Alistair naturally had some reservations on how long this entire process would likely take.

"After establishing that we were serious potential customers, Grant suggested that he could speak to Hyundai’s design team in Korea about the possibility of having the complete unit built in the factory in Seoul and have it shipped to New Zealand, ready to be certified for use here," says Josh.

"The prospect of having the team at Hyundai organise our purchase as a turnkey package was most appealing to say the least, as our guys were all flat-out with 18 active jobs, all of which were at various stages of completion at the time."

Furthermore, Josh and Alistair were impressed with the positive attitude of the Hyundai team, which cemented the decision-making process. "There was quite simply no point in looking any further," says Josh.

"The Hyundai team only took a matter of days to contact us with the good news that, yes, they’d be happy to take the necessary steps to accommodate the toolbox with a standard Hyundai tipper body."

The toolbox was custom made in Korea

Marcus Walker, Hyundai NZ’s national sales manager explains: "In standard configuration, a tipping body is fitted to a short wheelbase version of the Hyundai Mighty EX6, but because of the requirement to fit a toolbox, in this case a long wheelbase chassis was required."

Once the final details of the order had been confirmed, SB Civil were told they could reasonably expect to take delivery of the truck in approximately four months’ time.

"Of course, none of us had any idea at this stage of the game that we’d be facing yet another Covid lockdown, an event that was bound to slow down the progress of the build, regardless of whether we took the path of having the bodywork placed on a cab and chassis in New Zealand or if the complete unit was Korean built," says Josh.

Korean-built tipping deck

"While it eventually took around nine months before we were able to get the truck on the road, this gestation period, which was forced upon us courtesy of Mr. Covid, did however provide us with an extended time to find and train a driver to fill this newest, very important role in our company."

Driver ‘Tee’ says the mighty EX6 has all the power he’ll ever need

Driver Tioata Mailo ‘Tee’ has since settled into his new position and says he’s enjoying driving his Hyundai EX6 around the city and suburbs. He says the truck has all the creature comforts of a car and getting in and out of the cab is easy because of the extra-wide and particularly low step.

Under construcion in Korea

Tee reckons that even with three tonnes of aggregate on the back, the mighty EX6 still has a lot of power, even on the steepest hills. "From a company perspective, the truck has now been in service for a little over two months and we couldn’t be any happier.

We are already seeing an increase in overall production by not having our operators leave site to pick up materials or small equipment, which could potentially take up to a couple of hours, depending on the typical Auckland traffic," says Josh.

While more detailed specification questions are always best answered by the team at Hyundai NZ, there is an adjacent list of the Hyundai EX6’s main features.

Hyundai Mighty EX6 specification

For more information, contact hyundai.co.nz

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