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Trail King Hydraulic Detachable Gooseneck (Trail King)

Trail King Industries announced it would become the exclusive U.S. and Canadian distributor of highway trailers made in Germany by Goldhofer AG, which also will become the sole distributor of Trail King products globally.

The market for solutions to transport heavy, complex, overdimensional equipment is improving domestically and internationally, according to Mitchell, S.D.-based Trail King, which will export its trailers and receive imported trailers from Goldhofer.

“We have identified a number of products that we feel can provide better solutions than currently exist in the global market,” Trail King President Joseph Kolb told Transport Topics.

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For instance, Trail King’s flagship trailer, the hydraulic detachable gooseneck, is headed for export. Trail King has international sales but mostly limited to Latin America, he added.

“Our relationship with Goldhofer now gives us access to a much broader sales network, which they have established for their modular product. And we will be able to, through those resources, reach customers in other countries,” Kolb said.

Goldhofer has been selling modular, or line trailers in the United States, for quite some time, he said. The company is now looking for support of its extensive line of highway trailers. These products offer similar technology as the modular units but at lower capacity and more configurations.

“The market is just now starting to see the need,” Kolb said. “There is a bit of a transition in some applications to the type of product we will be supporting with our sales and service team.”

Goldhofer is getting into an agreement with a “pretty significant player in that segment of the business in the U.S.,” said Frank Maly, ACT Research Co.’s director of commercial vehicle transportation analysis and research.

ACT is forecasting demand for heavy-haul trailers to rise 25% to 30% in 2018 compared with a year earlier.

Other trailer manufacturers market their own product on multiple continents, Maly added. “But for two players to get together like this and, in essence, exchange product to broaden their coverage, that is kind of a new twist on approaching the market.”

One of the advantages of the Goldhofer system has to do with the steering of the unit so it can maneuver in tighter spaces and be used in situations where there isn’t a lot of room, he said.

Meanwhile, Trail King does not intend to set up its independent dealers as Goldhofer distributors, Kolb said.

“We will approach the market directly. It is certainly something we are excited about. It’s been in the works a little while,” he said.

Both companies are members of the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association, which includes 1,300 members from 46 nations.

The two companies first raised a what-if question a couple of years ago at ConExpo, the international construction trade show. “It was a really natural kind of dialogue between two companies that have respected each other for a number of years,” Kolb said.

“Certainly, Trail King is looking at some growth in the international markets and Goldhofer is looking at this opportunity in the U.S. market,” he added. “But really, we are looking at it from the customer’s perspective. It helps us help them with a more complete range of products.”

Trail King offers open-deck and material-hauling trailers for the construction, agriculture, transportation and specialized hauling markets, with load capacities up to 1 million pounds.

Goldhofer started as a forge in 1705. It now produces equipment for payloads ranging between 20 and 10,000-plus tons.