The Right Commercial Vehicle for your business: for anyone starting their own business and needing to buy a commercial vehicle for their operation, choosing the right one for your business can often be tricky.

Osborne Motor Bodies Ltd. is a commercial vehicle bodybuilder that specialises in supplying commercial vehicle bodies and offering general and specialised vehicle bodybuilding and conversion services.

We are a well-established company that has been operating for over 100 years and are best known for our long history in supplying the diary industry with milk floats.

However, we have also been supplying other commercial vehicle bodies for many decades, including utility vehicles, glass carrier vehicles, ground maintenance vehicles and offering bespoke commercial vehicle conversions to meet the individual needs of your business.

What is a commercial vehicle?

Commercial vehicles are purpose-built to be used in an industrial or business environment and will differ significantly from a standard family car.

In most cases, a commercial vehicle will be used to move around goods and materials rather than for the transportation of people. Most commercial vans and lorries can carry two or three people but can be adapted to carry more passengers if needed.

The rear space behind the front seats is designed to carry goods or materials or to carry or tow another vehicle or a large piece of machinery.

Different types of commercial vehicles

One of the most common commercial vehicles you will see driving around UK roads is the commercial van. A van is a very flexible and adaptable medium-sized vehicle that is useful for the majority of business types in this country, hence its popularity.

However, there are many commercial van types to choose from, and it can help to know the difference and how each one is designed before making your choice if a van is what you need for your business.

• Panel van: The most common type of van on the road in the UK today. The open-plan body has a great capacity to carry a sizeable load, and panel vans are easy to drive. Generally described as a box on wheels, these vans have a generous cargo space and are a favourite with delivery companies up and down the country. There is no rearview mirror as panel vans don't have rear windows. However, you do get side mirrors that are larger than standard car side mirrors to enable you to see behind you.
• Double cab van: This is similar to a panel van, but it has an extra row of seats behind the front seats and an extra set of side windows. This van type is ideal if you need to take a work gang or team along with you on projects. You still have a generous cargo area for your tools and materials, and it is an ideal choice if you want to rack out a van to secure and carry tools and work equipment in safety to use in the field.
• Dropside van: This style van has a large and open loading bay, which is ideal for easy loading and unloading of bulky goods on palettes using a fork-lift truck. These vans are similar to pick-up trucks but have a dropside panel for better accessibility, whereas pick-up trucks tend to have an opening panel at the rear only.
• Tipper van: This is a utility vehicle with a similar design to drop side vans, but the loading bay is fitted with an electro-hydraulic underbody tipping subframe, which can tilt or dump the van's contents from behind.

A wide choice of utility vehicles

Our selection of commercial utility vehicle bodies includes many options that can be sourced as standard straight off the production line or adapted to suit your business's needs by our in-house team of expert commercial vehicle conversion engineers.

Can work on anything from heavy-duty maintenance units to converted Land Rovers. We can take a standard panel van and convert it into a glass carrier vehicle for you. Whatever your business needs, we have the knowledge, experience and flexibility to help!

We are the South East's leading distributor of Supertrucks range of glass carrying equipment, so we can adapt a brand new vehicle body, a previously used vehicle – or your existing vehicle to meet your needs.

Our team also work closely with many grounds maintenance companies to convert basic utility vehicle bodies into something more practical and efficient. For example, we converted a batch of unique dual compartment tipping bodies designed explicitly to end-user requirements for power line tree clearance operations.

Bespoke commercial vehicle conversions

If you need a bespoke commercial vehicle conversion, then our Osborne Motor Bodies Ltd. team should be your first port of call. We have a fully equipped workshop, the right tools and cutting edge CAD technologies to get every last detail of your vehicle conversions perfect.

Even if you want to adapt your vehicle to be used in more than one way for your business, why not bring your ideas to us, and we will see if it is a viable project.

No matter how you want your bespoke vehicle conversion to work, our careful planning and experienced eyes will ensure that your conversion meets all commercial vehicle road safety rules and regulations.

Take a look at some of our commercial vehicle conversion jobs and contact us to find out how we can help.