Gippsland Body Builders celebrates 50 years

Gippsland Body Builders was 20 years old when current Managing Director, Ryan Worrall, was born. Ryan’s father, Danny, had purchased the trailer manufacturing company with his business partner, Brian Golding, in the Gippsland region of Victoria in 1985.

Brian’s father founded the business 11 years earlier. Danny and Brian took the reins and committed to creating a legacy of high-quality custom trailers for the transport industry – a legacy which Ryan grew up around.

“I spent a lot of my childhood around the company,” Ryan recalls. “As a kid, I always wanted to be heavily involved. It was great to understand where the company had come from and where it was going.”

Gippsland Body Builders’ origins were in general transport body manufacturing. But Danny and Brian noticed a gap in the market for trailers and tippers and led the company in that direction.

“The market evolved a fair bit, and our manufacturing capabilities did too,” Ryan says. “Our offering grew from single trailers to B-doubles and then road train spec trailers. We built the first metro double combination in the mid-1990s and our first step deck trailer in 1996, which we believe was the first step deck in Australia.

“Additionally, we became well-known for implementing aluminium chassis in our builds to reduce tare weights and improve longevity.”

Ryan, eager to follow in his father’s footsteps and oversee the family business, started his own apprenticeship at Gippsland Body Builders in 2010. After 15 years of dedicated work, he bought majority shares in the company and was named co-owner alongside his father.

Gippsland Body Builders has come a long way from the original vision of two men in regional Victoria. The company is now 50 years old – an impressive feat in a competitive and fast-paced market.

The business has grown to reflect this milestone. Its operations now spread across two work sites and are supported by many staff members.

Ryan, now in command, is looking to grow the company’s manufacturing capabilities while retaining the core family values which got it this far.

“We want to take on more diverse work while staying true to the family values that this company was built on,” he says. “We don’t want to get to the point where we’re so corporate that we lose touch of what we’re making or who we’re making it for.”

Ryan says these values have made Gippsland Body Builders very approachable – a factor which has long been a cornerstone of its success.

“We want to continue providing old-school services,” he says. “We want people to feel like they can call us, tell us what they personally need and get our help. We want to facilitate that relationship all the time and give them what they actually want.

“Offering a service like this has never been easy. Properly listening to customers and carrying out their customisations has always required a bit of extra effort, but that’s the effort that we’re willing to put in.”

Although the task of catering to various customer needs with high-quality builds can be difficult and demanding, Gippsland Body Builders is able to achieve it by completing every step of the trailer building process in-house within its well-equipped facilities. This allows Ryan and the team to exact their own specific standards of quality control and attention to detail.

“We are responsible for every aspect of our manufacturing and aftersales processes, from the customer’s phone call and quoting to engineering, delivery and aftersales support,” Ryan says. “We don’t want anyone else involved in the process because they’ll get in the way of us and the customer. Plus, by controlling every part of our trailer production, it is much easier to implement changes to our processes or instill a new direction.”

Gippsland Body Builders is now gearing up to reintroduce truck and dog combinations to its build capacity. This is a move which will allow it to better support the market.

“We’re planning to return to the truck and dog market so that we can service more trailer customers more consistently,” Ryan says. “This expansion will begin with us reaching out to more customers and letting them know we’re in the space. We’ll also be employing more workers and refining our workshop processes so that we can take on more work.

“In the past, manufacturing two very different trailer types at the same time has proven to be difficult. But I want the business to evolve so that it can service these varying sectors at once.”

Gippsland Body Builders, having surpassed its momentous 50th anniversary, is now ready to evolve even further. As the business approaches this next phase, Ryan recognises the significance of what the business has achieved over the last half-century.

“It’s a bit difficult to fathom our 50th anniversary,” he says. “It’s quite incredible to reach this stage. It’s a credit to everyone who has been involved with the company. I’m so proud that we’ve been able to keep this business in the family for all of this time.

“We’ve prioritised our staff, our customers and our values – and we’ll continue to do this as the business begins its next phase.”