The DewEze 1600 Series flatbed, shown here on a Ram 5500 chassis, is designed for easy installation.Some truck products can really take you by surprise.
That was the case for Travis Croteau, manager of Upstate New York Plow & Truck Body and his shop foreman, Joe Champagne, who spotted a DewEze 1600 Series flatbed at the NTEA Work Truck Show.
“We were walking through the show and that 1600 Series platform that they’re making just about knocked me off my feet when I walked by it and I saw the spray-on bed liner on the top of the deck and I liked the looks of the headache rack,” Croteau said.
“And I liked the looks of the crash plate on the back, you know, the rear apron. It looked really, really good and it looked like there was access to the electrical at the rear of the chassis which with a lot of bodies that’s not possible. They don’t engineer that it in so that you can remove a service plate so that you can get to the wiring and just put the cover back on it. That’s what intrigued me about the body and the fit and finish was good.”
After the crowd had died down, Croteau and Champagne both went back to the DewEze flatbed for a closer look. They talked with Dennis Roberts, vice president and national OEM sales manager at DewEze, who told them more about the flatbed and showed them the mounting kits.
“It’s a very simple set-up to mount and the mounts are extremely easy to use,” explained Croteau, who now sells the DewEze flatbed at his store in Latham, N.Y.
“We mount the body in three hours or less. The install is what really impressed us most about the body, and it’s very simple to install the tool box—all the bracketry is already welded to the body and right there ready to go and it makes it simple to add underbody boxes to it.”
When asked to describe what else he likes about DewEze flatbeds, Croteau didn’t miss a beat.
“They have an excellent clutch pump system,” he said. “Whether it’s for a simple dump body with a spreader or a couple of plow controls or a wrecker, their belt drive right systems off the engine are the best engineered I’ve ever seen in the 30 years I’ve doing this. DewEze has an eye for what the gooseneck body industry is all about—fit and finish, easy to mount.”
Upstate New York Plow & Truck Body, part of the Queensbury, N.Y.-based Nemer Motor Group, opened its doors about two years ago. The store, with locations in Latham and Queensbury, is also a dealer for Meyer Plows, Snow Dogg Plows, CM Truck Beds and HME Fire Trucks.
