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Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BY PAUL SCHENCK

• Great Dane Limited Partnership built approximately 48,000 truck trailers in 2007. While this was about 20 percent less than Great Dane's 2006 production, it was enough to keep the company in the top spot in unit volume.

• Wabash National, Lafayette, IN, completed 45,524 trailers in 2007, which is 24% less than the previous year. This total includes 35,317 dry vans, down 26% and 4,348 Transcraft platforms, down 36%. A bright spot was refrigerated trailer production, which was up 5% to 5,859 Wabash reefers. Not counted in the total of complete trailers were 713 converter dollies, about half the number built in 2006.

  Wabash CEO Richard Giromini noted that Wabash National's DuraPlate dry van has changed how long fleets keep their trailers and has greatly lowered their maintenance costs. “With over 300,000 of these trailers now on the road, we have found that more and more carriers are moving toward the composite dry van trailer.”

• Utility Trailer Manufacturing, City of Industry CA, produced 30,648 truck trailers, down 16% from the 2006 total. The company maintained its position as the largest manufacturer of refrigerated trailers, even though its reefer production slipped 22% to 14,857 trailers. Utility's dry freight van output was down only 9% to 12,512 vans, which resulted in Utility increasing its market share to more than 10% of the nationwide dry van market, according to Craig Bennett, senior VP, sales and marketing. He attributes this growth in the dry van sector to Utility's 4000DX trailer, a sheet-and-post trailer that has the inside dimensions and cube of a composite sidewall trailer but lighter weight. Utility also produced 3,279 platforms and Tautliner curtainside trailers, down 15% from 2006.

  Looking ahead, Bennett said the market may have stabilized somewhat. It was really slow in the late summer and fall months but showed some life in the last two weeks of December and first two weeks of January.

• Hyundai Translead production of van trailers was off 11% in 2007 at 12,950 trailers. This includes 11,646 dry vans, down 15%, and 1,304 refrigerated trailers, a 75% increase. That was the brightest part of the picture. Domestic container production of 1,346 containers (including 10 refrigerated containers) was down 73%. Container chassis production was down 60% to 4,383. Hyundai also built 743 converter dollies, up 59%.

  Hyundai, with offices in San Diego CA and its trailer factory just across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, is one of the few container and chassis manufacturers in North America. It is working to expand trailer production in the face of declining container and chassis production.

• Stoughton Trailers in Stoughton WI was down 40% in its production of dry freight vans. Stoughton built 11,400 van trailers in 2007. CEO Don Wahlin says the outlook for the year is flat at a very low level. President Ken Wahlin adds that their customers are saying that freight volumes may not improve until the second half but weren't sure if it would be the second half of 2008 or 2009.

• Fontaine Trailer Company in Haleyville AL produced 7,221 trailers, down 35% from 2006. This total includes 6,504 platforms, down 32%, and 717 lowbed trailers, down 48%.

• Vanguard National Trailer Corp of Monon IN built 6,189 van trailers in 2007, down 24% from 2006. Two-thirds of these were sheet-and-post vans, and one-third were of composite sidewall construction. Robert Taylor, director of trailer sales, says the company expects a flat year in 2008, with a potential pickup in the fourth quarter. He says the company forecast is to build 7,500 vans with expectation of 10,000.

• Trailmobile Canada in Mississauga, Ontario, was down 32% to 5,682 van trailers, marking the first year that this plant was not at capacity since start-up. Tom Wiseman, president, says the company is not at all optimistic for the first half of 2008 but hopes for an improvement in the fourth quarter.