| Bevan ICONs Help McCarthy & Stone Customers to Begin New Lives |
| Wednesday, 01 February 2012 12:18 |
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Britain’s biggest developer of new-build retirement homes has launched a dedicated removals service with a fleet of state-of-the-art Luton vans.
The initiative is relieving customers of McCarthy & Stone of much of the stress and aggravation that moving to a new home can entail, particularly for those who may have been settled in their previous property for 30 or 40 years.
The service is being co-ordinated and delivered by removals specialist House to Home UK, which commissioned the vehicles. The 10 fuel-efficient 3.5-tonne Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 313CDIs are fitted with streamlined ICON bodies that offer market-leading payloads of more than 1,200kg.
The chassis were supplied by Birmingham dealer Midlands Truck & Van while the bodies were fitted by leading manufacturer Bevan Group, of Halesowen, West Midlands. Wearing eye-catching McCarthy & Stone liveries, and manned by uniformed staff, the vehicles are among the most distinctive on Britain’s roads.
Bournemouth-based McCarthy & Stone will sell over 1,300 homes this year and expects to provide a removals service for around 80 per cent of these. Its National Sales Director Lorena Brown says: “We spoke to a lot of potential customers and were shocked to discover how many of them found the prospect of moving out of the family home just too daunting. So we set out to help them through the process and the House to Home service is an important part of that. It’s a great benefit for the customer and a great benefit for us. Our branding looks great and we’ll be adding to the fleet as demand increases.”
House to Home UK is part of the Vogue Group of companies and operates from headquarters in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands. Managing Director James Sandbrook explains: “The ICON-bodied Mercedes-Benz Sprinter combines high levels of productivity, user-friendly-practicality and safety, with excellent environmental credentials.”
The Euro 5 Sprinter 313CDI is 15 per cent more efficient than its Euro 4 equivalent, this improvement equating to an extra 4.5 miles per gallon, while CO2 emissions are down by 13 per cent. Like all Mercedes-Benz vans, it also offers a driving experience more akin to a luxury car than a van, and is equipped with a comprehensive armoury of active and passive safety features, including the Adaptive ESP® anti-skid program; this monitors a vehicle’s changing load status and is thus able to intervene with even greater sensitivity and precision in critical situations.
The ICON body was developed by Bevan Group in partnership with independent aerodynamics experts from Cranfield University and Hatcher Components, and launched at the 2011 Commercial Vehicle Show.
Its innovative, modular panels – moulded cab deflector and collar, side walls and roof – were created using three-dimensional CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) technology then honed in a wind tunnel, and are manufactured in a lightweight and recyclable composite GRP material.
Adds Mr Sandbrook: “To contain costs we’re naturally keen to make maximum use of the available loadspace. The ICON offers impressive volume and payload capacities, while its aerodynamic design contributes to improved fuel economy. It also has a fantastic on-road presence allowing our vans to double as highly visible mobile advertising spaces, reinforcing consumer awareness of the McCarthy & Stone brand.” |
