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As the DAF Truck franchise holder for East Anglia, Chassis Cab DAF provides a variety of services. These include new and used DAF truck sales, truck servicing and repair, supply of DAF and TRP truck and trailer parts, vehicle air conditioning maintenance, and more. We learn more from Robert Baxter, Managing Director, who shares an overview of the company.
“ Chassis Cab DAF is a family business established in 1982 by David Ruffles as an accident repair center focused on straightening chassis and repairing cabs, as reflected in our name. At that time, we were not yet a DAF dealer, just an independent body shop. We later secured a service franchise for Leyland DAF, as it was known back then. Rewind to 32 years ago, when Leyland DAF reorganized, and we became a main dealer for DAF trucks. Although we remain a family-owned business, David sadly passed away a number of years ago, and the company is now owned and run by his daughters; I now manage the business on behalf of the family. We truly embody the spirit of a family business, with many employees having been here for over 30 years, including mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives working together.
“ Over the past two decades, we have experienced significant growth, increasing our sales from 99 new trucks in 1999 to over 950 new trucks this year. Additionally, we have expanded beyond our original base in Bury St. Edmunds, where the company was founded, to open branches in Ipswich, Newmarket, and Cambridge. Our workforce has also increased from around 60 employees in the 1990s to 200 today. Although we no longer operate a body shop, we are still the main DAF dealer for Suffolk, North Essex, and Cambridgeshire. We provide all the services typical of a DAF main dealer, including parts for all makes, as well as truck servicing and sales. Recently, we won an important award from DAF for the second year in a row: the Customer Service Award. While there are many awards, winning the Customer Service Award means the most to us because it shows how much we look after our customers,” he explains.
Recently, the company has been busy opening a new facility in Newmarket while also refitting its Bury St. Edmunds site.“ We previously operated a dealership in Isleham, a village just a few miles away from Newmarket, where we were known as Universal Garage. This is because we acquired Universal Garage 18 years ago, and since it was an established DAF service dealer, we decided to keep the name. The dealership
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