Haulmark Trailers

Haulmark began trading in 1963 as Truck & Trailer Repairs at 286 Evans Road, Salisbury, in Brisbane, the venture of a few friends who saw demand for trailers durable enough for Australian conditions. In 1964 it moved to Rocklea and began trading as Haulmark Trailers, building semi-trailers there for the mining, cattle, construction and general freight trades. A Townsville dealer was appointed in 1975 and a Northern Territory dealer in 1986; the monocoque cattle trailer and the curtainsided trailer followed in 1988, low-tare designs in 1993, side-tippers in 1995 and Performance Based Standards combinations in 2008.

The company's own timeline records the supply of trailers to the Department of Defence from 1984, and it describes itself as active in the design, manufacture and sustainment of military trailers for tank and armoured-vehicle transport and for ammunition, fuel and containerised freight. Its Land Rover product is the Trailer, Lightweight, Cargo, 750 kg (Haulmark), MC2, whose Army data summary (EMEI Vehicle H 090, Issue 2, January 2010) names Haulmark Trailers (Australia) of 1848 Ipswich Road, Rocklea, as manufacturer, with a New South Wales branch at Chipping Norton. The trailer's primary role is the carriage of general stores up to 750 kg, and it is designed to be towed by the Truck, Light and Lightweight, MC2 (Land Rover) fleet, the Perentie 110 and 6x6. It is a single-axle prefabricated galvanised-steel-framed trailer with a 2.5 mm aluminium-sheet floor, a drop-down removable tailgate, twelve 1,000 kg tie-down rings, a 12/24 V system with a 12-pin NATO connector and Hella DuraLed lighting including blackout and convoy lights, on ROH steel wheels with an Engineered Transport Equipment axle; unladen it weighs 450 kg and laden 1,200 kg, and it can be slung under a Black Hawk or airlifted in a C-130. Australian Frontline Machinery, the Defence disposals agent, now sells the type (model PT1-2) as an ex-military trailer.

In April 2010 the Commonwealth signed a $31 million contract with Haulmark under Project Land 121 Overlander for 583 lightweight and 390 light trailers, 830 in all, to run behind the 950 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons that were replacing the Perentie; the order was announced by the Minister for Defence Materiel in October 2011 as Defence and Australian business working together. Haulmark Trailers (Australia) Pty Ltd, ABN 85 010 131 567, remains an Australian-owned private company at Rocklea, ISO 9001 certified, with branches opened in Darwin in 2014, Adelaide in 2018 and Townsville in 2022.