Local manufacturer Basic Trailers is expanding its operations in South Australia, where Holden’s Elizabeth plant was the center of the company’s production in Australia and where belief that this marks the nail in the coffin of Australian manufacturing is strong.
Basic Trailers has expanded rapidly since opening in 2018, and will now move to larger premises in order to it to fulfil demand. The company will also take on more full-time workers at its new and expanded workshop facility.
“We are now able to offer an even bigger selection of trailers and expand the range we have in stock at any one time, meaning that there is little or no waiting time for our customers who want to be able to buy a locally built trailer and tow it home the same day,” General manager of Basic Trailers, Sam Francis, said of the move to the new premises at Pooraka.
“Lots of people want to talk down manufacturing in South Australia and say there is no industry here. Yet the rapidly growing demand we have experienced goes against this.
“Our customers constantly tell us that they value the fact that our trailers are designed and built in Adelaide, and they would always prefer to buy a locally manufactured product over an imported one.
“Our having to move in order to accommodate demand tells me that there is definitely still a future for manufacturing in South Australia,” Francis said.
Basic Trailers’ trailers are designed, manufactured and distributed in Adelaide. They have proven to be popular in part as a backlash against the cheaper but inferior imported trailers that have in recent years flooded the market. They are also made from Australian steel.
The company has invested heavily in CAD simulation software and CNC machinery that has enabled it to explore the limits of trailer design. This also means that it is able to produce customised trailers designed to its customers’ precise specifications.
This ability to build fully customised trailers is a feature that a local manufacturer is able to offer that importers can’t and has contributed significantly to its success, according to the company.