The Premium Flatbed

This photo brought back some memories. About a year after I started my first commercial truck operation in Santa Rosa, CA, I wanted a flatbed that we could sort of use as a branding tool. I called it the "premium flatbed." The one in the photo above was built by Bob Dias at North Bay Truck Body in Cordelia, CA and he helped me write the specs for the body. I had all the body companies I dealt with build one to those specs and then we sold a serious number of them over the years.

The general specs were tapered headboard with mesh screen, tapered Forklift loadable, bolted-on, not welded on rack, hitch and wiring, short contractor style gates around the bed, cross members on 12" centers, painted black gloss, tie down hooks under rail, etc. We even went so far as to weld in short pipe sections into the rack for the pins to mount the crossbars so that no water could get into the rack tubing.

In this case, the unit has a Rugby dump hoist with subframe. The vast majority of the premium flatbeds we sold were non-dumping. This particular unit was built for my second commercial truck operation at Woodard Chevrolet in Fairfield, CA and was mounted on the 15,000 GVWR 3500HD. A sweet combination.

If you like this bed and want one for your operation, just call Bob Dias at 707-864-2700 and tell him you want a Minion Premium Flatbed. He will know what you mean.