All set and ready to be loaded, this Citroën Jumper chassis-cab with a Tijhof beavertail truck bed. Simple and light, as there is no tilting system. The truck is owned by a car detailer, so I assume the winch behind the cab is barely used.
The Citroën’s engine is sourced from Iveco (FPT, nowadays); an inline-four, DOHC 16v turbodiesel with a displacement of 3.0 liter and a maximum power output of 157 DIN-hp. That’s quite a big diesel engine, in this truck segment. From a European point of view, I must hastily add.
In the background, from left to right: a 2003 Škoda Fabia Combi, 2015 Volkswagen Polo, 2012 Toyota Yaris (hybrid), 2002 Toyota Yaris (first gen) and a canary yellow, 2005 Renault Kangoo.
The Renault van is photobombing, due to its color. Of course you’ve already recognized the truck’s cab and its face. Indeed, one of the FCA-PSA quadruplets: Fiat Ducato, Ram ProMaster, Peugeot Boxer and Citroën Jumper.
There it goes, carrying a second (and current) gen Toyota Aygo. And that’s one of the Toyota-PSA triplets: Peugeot 108, Citroën C1 and said Toyota. An A-segment hatchback, that must be an easy job for both detailer and his truck.
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So they take the car somewhere else, detail it, and return it?
This has turned into almost exclusively a mobile, on-site business where I live. Van shows up to the parking lot at your place of work, set up an awning over your car & wash & detail it right there in the office parking lot, and it’s ready to go when you leave work.
That was my first thought, too – why not just do it on-site? The additional overhead costs for such a fancy truck is a bit crazy for me to fathom for such a service.
Fancy? An utterly basic and highly common set-up, just a light truck that was bought used when it was 4 years old. And meanwhile it’s 11 years old.
Almost all car detailers here work in their own shop. Google Maps Veesteeg Beneden-Leeuwen – Hogeweg Wamel. It’s a rather short trip, I can tell you.
It seems to me from the first picture that it is picking up a car at a Toyota Dealership. So the bigger question in my mind is why don’t they have an in house detail staff. That is very common at US new car and larger used car dealers.
I’ve got a feeling that this local, compact dealership isn’t quite big enough to justify a professional, in-house detail staff.
Where I live in rural Cyprus,no one does detailing, they sometimes recognize the British term “valeting”, but they won’t do it.
This used to be an excellent way for a middle school/high school kid to make some spending money. I did this back in the early ’70’s. I had relatives/friends drop their car off in the morning and I would wash, wax and detail the outside of the car (used SOS pads for cleaning white walls). Then vacuum the interior, shampoo the carpets and interior detailing. At the end of the day they would be all giddy about their “new car”. And I enjoyed doing that back then.
What’s the maximum load this can carry? Around here all the flatbeds are huge extremely heavy duty cabs with large tilting beds like the one linked below from a post last year (except mostly single cabs, not crew). Even the Carvana delivery trucks that use smaller cabs such as this still have a tilting bed, this Jumper or a RAM version would seem to do the job just as well.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/on-the-road-with-the-cohort-peugeot-504-is-madame-in-distress/
I’m seeing a max payload of 1815 kg on the UK website. That’s 4,000 lbs, exactly the same as my Promaster van. That’s going to be plenty for the great majority of European cars, but might not be enough for US use, as a car-hauler.
But the Iveco daily, which is RWD, would undoubtedly have a much higher payload.
I used to see a fair number of Isuzu cab-over car haulers; still see a few around. In fact way back in CA when our Jeep (natch) broke down in N. Cal, we got hauled by a double-cab Isuzu.
Certainly for a chassis-cab, it all depends on the body/bed it gets what the payload capacity will be. Extra bodywork or equipment (like hydraulics or a crane) means less payload capacity for pure cargo.
Years ago, I drove a similar Ford Transit for a rental company.
We could take a Vauxhall Vectra or Ford Mondeo, but were told if we took a VW Touran there had to be hardly any fuel in the car and the truck. I told them I would take a shit before I set off.
Clearly not the most professional outfit. The business model essentially was scamming insurance companies. I recalling turning on a slope and scraping the rear bodywork on the ground with a Touran on the back.
BTW the Iveco Daily is usually 3500kg gross, in the UK anyway, so its extra weight vs a Ducato or Transit just robs payload.
For heavier cars you’d most likely see a 7.5 tonner like a DAF LF or an Isuzu, possibly a twin deck. The Isuzu is popular in this application because the cab is made of tin foil, leaving more payload.
Legal maximum GVM 3,500 kg (so that you can drive it with a car driver’s license). Its curb weight is 2,180 kg, so 1,320 kg payload capacity. But you have to take these numbers with a grain of salt…
This is a heavy-duty Jumper, like my brother’s camper van. Legal and factory axle load ratings: front 2,100 kg – rear 2,400 kg. That’s 4,500 kg GVM, thus 2,320 kg (5,115 lbs) factory payload capacity for this truck.
Plus the towing capacity (it does have a trailer hitch) 3,000 kg.
Thanks, that makes sense, the ones around here haul everything including larger trucks and SUV’s, 4000lbs barely covers a midsize sedan anymore. Flatbeds have pretty much supplanted the old style tow trucks entirely out here as well, perhaps the prevalence of AWD has a lot to do with it as well.
A Jumpy is no problemo for this Jumper.
In the US this sort of rig was typically on a 1 ton dual rear wheel chassis but is mostly used for racing cars and golf carts. The rollback style is the default for US flatbed tow trucks. These also used to be F350 C30 etc. but over the last 10-20 years have migrated to the heavy duty pickups like the Ford F550, or RAM 5500 or medium chassis like the F750 or International 4300/4700. A quick troll through Commercial Truck Trader did turn some interesting variations from the usual wheel lift and flat beds i the form of a dedicated motorcycle hauler built around a Ford E350 box van with a hook lift system that had a platform for the motorcycles that was loaded on the ground and then pulled inside and an Isuzu NRR flatbed with a retractable curtain side body to cover the car in transit.
Well the average weight of the vehicles on the road has gone up in recent years with the shift to utility vehicles, so it does make sense that the class 3 trucks have gone by the wayside.