When Neville Simpson, Managing Director of Jack Simpson Fuel Supplies, was faced with the issue of safely and efficiently delivering fuel to his customers around Sydney, he knew exactly who to turn to.
Jack Simpson Fuel Supplies is renowned as a wholesale and retail market leader for BP petroleum products and Castrol lubricants in the Sydney area, offering optimised delivery services from depots at Oakville, Werrington and Mittagong using a fleet of dedicated tankers and highly qualified employees.
With a booming business at stake and in need of high-quality tankers and trailers, Neville turned to Holmwood Highgate, another family owned and operated enterprise recognised as a world leader in the design and manufacture of bulk liquid storage and transportation systems.
Like many truck and transport businesses across Australia, Jack Simpson Fuel Supplies and Holmwood Highgate have had similar starts in life – both growing from small suburban outfits to leading industry companies thanks to the hard work and dedication of a few men with big visions of the future.
Jack Simpson Fuel Supplies started life in 1963 under a different guise when Jack and his son, Neville, opened a mechanical repair and panel beating business on the Great Western Highway in Wentworthville, in Sydney’s western suburbs. At the time, the workshop was part of the Star Auto Centre service station where the father and son ran the complete show – retail fuel supplies with auto panel beating and spray painting as their main focus of business.
It wasn’t until the petrol sales at the small service station grew steadily to a massive monthly turnover of seven million litres that petroleum became the primary business. They soon turned it into one of the largest fuel sales operations in Sydney at the time.
Twenty years after the business started, the Simpsons bought a fuel depot at Oakville, where the monthly turnover was 600,000 litres. The business became a well-known BP distributor, expanding to include depots at Werrington and Mittagong. That small family enterprise has now grown more than ten-fold to be a market leader throughout greater Sydney.
Today, Jack Simpson Fuel Supplies has about 30 employees and operates a fleet that includes two Holmwood Highgate Performance-Based Standards (PBS) 40’ quad-axle B-doubles and five mini tankers for onsite refuelling. This means it can facilitate effective and efficient supply loads of all sizes to most sites, providing rapid turnaround on client orders, highlighted by 24-hour on-site refuelling and 48-hour bulk deliveries.
The collaboration between Jack Simpson Fuel Supplies and Holmwood Highgate started when the Simpsons bought rigid tankers 25 years ago, followed by purchases of Holmwood Highgate’s semi-trailers over the last 10 years. That relationship has been extended with the Simpsons purchasing a new 25m Holmwood Highgate B-double trailer that will be towed by a Kenworth T610. The new acquisition will add to the two existing quad-axle tankers in the Simpsons’ fleet.
The three-compartment lead trailer and five-compartment B trailer combination was made for maximum diesel capacity. It features Hendrickson INTRAAX suspension, Alcoa wheels with Michelin tyres, checker plate and rubber stone protection on the landing legs and extra toolboxes on the driver’s side.
With a Gross Combination Mass (GCM) of 68.5 tonnes and a payload of 54,000 litres of diesel, the B-double will be used for trips from Sydney to Windsor, Victoria, operating under Higher Mass Limits (HML).
“It will deliver high quality fuel for BP, through Wagga Wagga and halfway to Melbourne where they do the changeover,” Neville says. “We’ve got a contract there and we go out to Forbes three times a week. We go up to the north coast and we do a lot of metro runs down the south coast.”
For Neville and his son, Jason, the choice of Holmwood Highgate as trailer builders was an easy one to make.
“They’re very well-made trailers,” Jason says. “They tend to last in our field of work going over the Blue Mountains. They’re spec’d well and they work for us.”
Neville says a key factor in buying from Holmwood Highgate is that its products are Australian made.
“From the day we buy from them, we’ve never had trouble, and we do a lot of kilometres,” he says. “So, they’re built to last. You can’t beat the quality. We don’t know what their warranty is like because we’ve never had to take a trailer back for warranty work.”
Neville doesn’t anticipate having any troubles with the new B-double trailer, saying the quality of the build will stand up to the demands of the business.
“If it’s anything like the quad trailers we’ve bought from them, it should be excellent,” he says. “The quads give us extra weight so we can cart more fuel, so we shouldn’t have any problems with it.”
It’s not just the carrying capacity that makes the Simpsons big fans of Holmwood Highgate products, with the trailers easily coping with 14-hour days, six days a week.
“They’re not in the workshop getting repaired,” Neville says. “They’re there when you need them. There’s never any downtime getting repairs or getting cracks in tankers or chassis, and that goes back to their manufacturing and the quality of their equipment values being Australian made.”
“The finish of their trailers is excellent,” Jason adds. “There’s never any issues or defects, so they’re always spot-on when they get here.”
Holmwood Highgate also excels in the customer service department, reflecting a pride in its work according to Neville.
“Wayne Sloane comes and see us and then we just go through how we want the tanker built,” he says. “From there, he comes back with a price and once we okay it, it’s on its way.
“They’re there when you want them and it’s no trouble to them at all. The Holmwood Highgate team is very down to earth. When you don’t have any problems with them, you can only speak highly of them.”
Having a quality Australian-made product at his disposal, 80-year-old Neville, who still oversees operations, is confident the association with Holmwood Highgate will continue down the family line.
“It’s a good way of looking forward for my son,” he says. “He’s kept the Holmwood products in the fleet, so he won’t have any trouble with his business as far as quality.”
Jason testifies to this, highlighting the fact that he’s never had any issues with Holmwood Highgate tankers in the fleet.
“They’ve all held up,” he says. “Holmwood tankers are well-made and tend to hold up the best, so that’s why we keep going back to them.”
