Ngongotaha mega truck certainly no pulp fiction

With its monster truck, a small Ngongotaha firm has built what others said was impossible.

Graeme Kelly, owner of Kraft Engineering, watched proudly this week as his latest design - believed to be the longest truck on the road in New Zealand - left the workshop bound for the roads of Hawkes Bay.

At 24.8 metres long and able to haul 62.8 tonnes, the Super B was the brainchild of Mr Kelly, who started his business 35 years ago with a love of trucks but no formal engineering training.

It was the introduction of high-productivity motor vehicles - a special category of freight trucks permitted to exceed standard lengths and weights on certain roads - that got Mr Kelly thinking.

His first Super B was a logging truck that took 12 months to get approval and permits for. That design caught the attention of Japanese-owned forest product company Pan Pac who were looking for a more efficient way of transporting pulp to and from the port.

The first curtained (covered sides) Super B was designed and partially built by Kraft and has been on the road since January. The second, built entirely in the Ngongotaha workshop, will soon join it.

The two trucks will do the job three of the smaller ones used to do. "It's a buzz seeing every unit that leaves but seeing one that was designed and built in-house, that's a good achievement," Mr Kelly said.

Before the New Zealand regulations changed, trucks could be no longer than 20 metres and weigh no more than 44 tonnes. Perhaps surprisingly, the big companies were in no rush to go bigger.

"Everyone else said it was impossible to do," Mr Kelly said.

"They laughed and said it was unable to be done, they had no foresight."

With the trucks' success, he's accepted the big players will now join the race but even the prospect of their using his design doesn't bother him too much.

"The bigger companies will overtake us," he said.

"I never had a dream to be a big company. I'm happy to plod along."

He has plenty of projects to keep him busy - Pan Pac wants another Super B early next year and he's in talks with four other companies keen on the extra-long trucks.

It's also been a learning curve for Kraft's 24 staff, who worked long hours on the latest creation.

"It's a credit to the staff who built the whole lot," Mr Kelly said.

"People just don't know what goes on in Ngongotaha!"

Daughter Annette Kelly said it's always a rush to see a Kraft truck on the road and know it was designed by her dad. "It's amazing what comes out of his head."