The GINAF Chronicle

Page 4

By Niels Jansen (North Holland 2024)

Special creations

In its first 25 years, GINAF mainly produced trucks for the tipper market. Only occasionally were other vehicles built at the request of customers. Later, special vehicles for agriculture, fire-fighting, container transport, waste disposal, as well as for crane work, earth drilling and pressure sounding for subsoil exploration (CPT) were added. Around 2000, the development and production of rally trucks was added, with which Wulfert and Edwin van Ginkel in particular achieved some successes.

In 2000, brothers Wuf and Edwin van Ginkel were infected with the Paris-Dakar virus. In the years that followed, they took part in countless desert rallies in Africa and South America. They used a 1000 hp race truck with 4x4 drive and won many a race.
With 6x6 drive in difficult terrain in the fight against forest fires: GINAF X 3335 S with crew cab and fire engine superstructure from 2002.
Originally a tipper, this GINAF X 5450 S has been given a new lease of life in Iceland after years of use on construction sites in the Netherlands. With a harmoniously designed bus body, it now drives tourists through the icy steppes of Europe's northernmost island state.
GINAF has also made a name for itself with the construction of narrow refuse collection vehicles, which are indispensable in the narrow streets of Dutch old towns. The Ergotruck was launched in 1996. It was only 220 centimeters wide, was called the B 2121 N and was presented at the Bedrijfsauto RAI in Amsterdam. The ergonomic design of the driver's cab with an access height of just 35 centimetres was particularly well received.
GINAF A 2121 N, built in 1997, on one of the bridges in the water city of Amsterdam. The cab came from the DAF 600/800/1000 series, which was based on the Leyland Roadrunner.
Based on the IVECO Eurocargo from 2003, GINAF offered the C 3127 N in 2005, a refuse collection vehicle with a loading crane for lifting and emptying underground containers.

GINAF was widely praised for its innovative and rock-solid products, but due to declining demand for custom vehicles for the construction industry, the company went bankrupt in 2011. Only after it was acquired by the Chinese conglomerate and truck manufacturer China Hi-Tech Group Corporation, or CHTC, was it able to resume limited construction of specialized chassis. In 2020, GINAF was successfully spun off from CHTC through a management buy-out. Since then, the Dutch truck producer has once again been operating as an independent company.

Hardly any task in vehicle construction seemed unsolvable for GINAF: 1992 was the year of construction of this unique piece, a mobile machine for tree clearing with shredder.

The program of "GINAF Trucks Nederland BV", as the company is now called, includes a range of construction vehicles with three, four and five axles based on the DAF CF Construction chassis. As these are extensive conversions, they are delivered under the GINAF name. This is also the case with the all-electric medium-duty trucks built on the basis of DAF CF and Mercedes Atego for refuse and distribution tasks, along with some in-house developed chassis with front wheel drive for this market segment. 

GINAF trucks are also available with modern 12.9-liter Paccar MX diesel engines of the Euro 5 and Euro 6 standard with up to 510 hp in combination with an AS-Tronic dual-mode automatic transmission. The vehicles can also be equipped with EVS steering and HVPS suspension. Since 2015, the trucks bear the name GINAF prominently above the radiator grille.

Monsters out of service: Two examples of the HD 5395 TS sold to Germany soon became part of the bankruptcy estate of the construction company that had ordered the heavy-duty dump trucks with Turkish Ford cabs from GINAF.
A GINAF HD 5395 TS at a vehicle show in the Netherlands in 2018, when it was still thought that this unconventional 95-tonne mine dumper might have a place in the international market.

In 2018 the showpiece of GINAF was the colossal HD 5395 TS with 10x6 drive chassis that was developed for open-pit mining in export countries. This behemoth was powered by a 610-hp Cummins QSX-15 diesel engine with a 12-speed ZF AS-Tronic transmission. It was good for a maximum gross weight of no less than 95 tons. A striking feature was the Turkish Ford Cargo cab that sat high up on the chassis. It marked the return of GINAF’s connection with Ford after 80 years. However, it is said that GINAF had to resort to the Turkish cab because Ford, unhappy that GINAF had opted for Cummins engines, was not keen on supplying the company with its new cab. Another problem was that DAF could not supply a diesel engine over 530 hp, which was necessary to keep a 95 ton mining truck on the move. In 2021, production of the HD 5395 TS was ended. Today GINAF’s offering in this field is the X6 5278 S 10x4 drive chassis for a GVW of 78 tons.

The five-axle GINAF X6 5250 S with concrete mixer body in the attractive paintwork of a Dutch concrete supplier from Barneveld is a real gem. Year of construction 2021.
Bulk tipper for fertilizer: The body had already been in use for 13 years when it was completely restored in 2022 and began a second working life on a new GINAF X6 5250 TS chassis.
Ginaf four-axle truck type X6 4345 TSV on a construction site at the Ijsselmeer dam, which separates the former Zuiderzee from the North Sea over a length of 32 kilometers and created the Ijsselmeer.
Roll-off tipper with loading excavator: GINAF X6 4344 TS from 2021


Changing owners

GINAF was sold again in July 2022. The Hamburg-based company Clean Logistics, which was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and specialized in the construction of hydrogen-powered trucks, acquired all shares in the Dutch vehicle manufacturer for 1.8 million euros and a block of shares in Clean Logistics worth 1.5 million euros. Depending on the business results of the next four years, a further share package of the same value was to be added. However, the big plans quickly came to nothing. The German start-up ran into financial difficulties and decided to make an "emergency sale" of the Dutch subsidiary after just six months. Clean Logistics filed for insolvency in February 2023. GINAF now has new owners from northern Germany. Arakos Service GmbH from Kabelhorst, whose core business is personnel consulting, is now also behind the construction of heavy trucks from the Netherlands.

GINAF has been using cabs from the new 2021 DAF generation since 2023. Here a chassis with the type designation XFC 4243 TS with roll-off device.
GINAF with new lettering on the radiator grille: Type XF 4243 S with device for roll-off containers, year of construction 2024

GINAF has been building vehicles again for a while now. After DAF launched a new generation of vehicles on the market in 2021, Ginaf has also followed this development and has been offering vehicles with a new look itself since October 2023. A list of the available types and possible drive formulas was published back in spring 2023. DAF chassis are used for the vehicles without all-wheel drive, while the chassis and front axles for the vehicles with all-wheel drive come from GINAF itself, and the rear axles and tandem axles from Sisu and Meritor. The automatic transmissions come from ZF and the engines from Paccar. The DAF XFc cabs with modified front section, special bumpers and access steps give the vehicles a robust and modern appearance.

 

Sources:

Ton Spaansen, Nico van der Wel: GINAF – De gebroeders van Ginkel – Een familie van truckbouwers, speciale uitgave van Van Ginkel Trucks (VGT) Ederveen 2017

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