Deluxe and Mitubishi spread North and South

From humble beginnings in 1983, Deluxe Freight Systems – a staunch user of Mitsubishi FUSO trucks for the past 22 years – has grown to a fleet of 21 trucks and 21 trailers.

The company runs two road trains a week from southeast Queensland to Darwin carrying a freight mix that includes aluminium, glass, piping, swimming pool fencing, parcels, and furniture.

If your premises are in north Queensland, the Northern Territory or Northern New South Wales, and have ducted airconditioning, chances are the ducting initially was freighted by Deluxe from their headquarters in Ipswich.

The long association with the Mitsubishi Fuso truck provided the support for owner Daryl Luxton’s strong links with ducting manufacturers in Queensland in those early days.

Ducting is not the only payload the company carries these days but it is a clear example of this company’s success in the niche freight handling markets.

Now steered by general manager Craig, Daryl’s son, the business is strongly focused on offering total freight solutions at a high level of integration with the client and, according to Craig, “adding value to the client through our willingness to modify truck bodies to suit specific commodities being shipped.

“We do whatever it takes to help the customer including designing modular units to fit the product most efficiently to the body space of the vehicle.”

Their 11 Mitsubishis have all been purchased through Zupps Trucks Centres.

“There was an FM515 and a nine-speed FP as well, That lasted “forever” while we were carting aluminium sections to north Queensland in the 90s,” he said.

“During that period Zupps truck centre would rebuild an engine at 600,000km over two days and we’d be back on the road to run the truck out to one million kilometres. At any time we’d have no less than seven or eight Fusos, always holding them until the 1 million km mark.

“We had a terrific run out of those vehicles,” he said.

The latest Mitsubishi Fuso to join the fleet is a 345hp long wheelbase FV Model fitted with a Ringfeeder coupling to pull a dog trailer for handling freight runs to Bundaberg and Northern Rivers over the border in NSW.

Published in The Courier Mail April 22-23, 2006

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