Everyone else in the refrigerated van conversion game probably envies the company and yet the GRP Group is setting out its stall to make even more inroads into the market. Established in 1973, the 29-strong Leeds-based team completes more than 800 panel van conversions a year and even though it is the clear market leader, its future seems set for all manner of change.

GRP’s sales director, Ian Lang, says: ‘There are something like 35-40 companies involved in the UK conversion market. And while we hold something like a 25-30% share of the market, the plans we are close to implanting should see a steady impact on our growth.’ Spending around £500,000 on its main Springfield Works site infrastructure is bound to boost the flow of vehicles. However, the size of these vehicles is also set to grow: ‘Although we are still working on the prototype,’ Lang says, ‘we should soon be announcing a new range of refrigerated box bodies to suit vehicles up to 7.5 tonnes.’

Followers of this specialist market may think it is strange that GRP is announcing a 7.5- tonne box body range when it has built them in the past. To understand what the company is doing now requires a look back at how the company owner – Don Rastrick – got GRP going. ‘I have to thank the local butchery trade for coming to my door,’ Rastrick says of GRP’s earliest days in 1973 when its business was boat building. ‘I never did very well with boat sales but when I was asked to use the glass reinforced plastic material to line out a butcher’s van, the whole direction of our market changed.’

Rastrick subsequently expanded into all manner of fields although as time has passed, offshoots such as Massey Tankers and GRP Westbury (now named Trumac) have been sold off as separate entities. And it was GRP Westbury that originally built the 7.5-tonne range of refrigerated bodies sold by the GRP Group. ‘I tried a little bit of retirement,’ Rastrick says, ‘but that did not work. When you have people like Ian Lang and David Barnes around, it just makes you want to keep on working.’

The average length of service for the GRP workforce is apparently 17 years and this wealth of experience stretches from the shop floor to the three vital members of GRP’s internal sales staff. All staff multitask. When ROADWAY toured the Leeds factory, parts of the production area looked unattended but the staff were simply doing other jobs elsewhere on the two-acre site.

The large number of vehicles seen in build and waiting to be started confirms the healthy state of GRP’s order book but the company is not complacent. Rastrick says: ‘We are conscious that some panel van buyers are local operators who like dealing with a locally based body builder. To that end, over the past 12 months we have been working closely with a West Midlands-based concern that has been carrying out conversions to vans using GRP kits made here in Leeds. After ensuring the continuity of build quality has been maintained to our very high standards, we are pleased to report this project has been a huge success and is set to continue.’

Rastrick feels the securing of a West Midlands GRP production outlet is bound to be of interest to potential customers in that region, while Lang went on to explain how this scheme may be extended. ‘We are very interested in talking to other bodybuilders perhaps in Scotland, Ireland or in the south of England,’ Lang says, ‘to take on a similar style of partnership operation.’

Converting every possible variant from the size of a carderived van up to a five-tonnes gross Iveco Daily has long been GRP’s forte. And as part of the tour, production director Dave Barnes took ROADWAY through the assembly process. ‘Generally we start a conversion with a kit of five items – the bulkhead, floor, two sides and roof – but we feel it is our attention to detail that keeps us ahead of the game,’ he says. ‘You would not believe how some of our competitors do a conversion without making provision to allow easy access – through the insulation – to replace, say, a rear light bulb. Or perhaps get into the rear door operating mechanism.’

One thing generally accepted about the GRP product is that it is built to last. The company knows of numerous long life examples and it is not unknown for its conversions to outlive the rest of the vehicle. To that end, Rastrick has launched another initiative. ‘We have normally always built new vehicles but we appreciate there are some users who would be more than happy with a second-hand vehicle with a GRP conversion. We intend to develop this idea and will probably use our web site for such sales.’

While the size of van conversion may be smaller than most vehicles used by RHA members, one GRP construction, which may be of great interest to any in road transport, is a temperature-controlled pallet. Powered by battery (or the vehicle’s electrics), the box is made from 200-800 litres in size, is capable of temperatures from -18 to +4 degrees and seems highly versatile to us. But then versatility what you expect from a company that started as a boat builder and became a market leader in panel van refrigerated vehicle conversions