Niehoff horse transporter for universal use thanks to lightweight chassis
Transporting horses poses challenges in terms of safety and driving comfort for four-legged passengers. It also requires an extended driving license for overseeing the vehicle combination and higher weight. Vehicle manufacturer Niehoff has found a solution to all these problems with its particularly light horse transporter.
Facts on the Niehoff und AL-KO collaboration
- Vehicle manufacturer Niehoff designs customized horse transporters and relies on chassis from AL-KO.
- The AMC low-frame chassis is 220 mm lower than conventional models and makes transportation comfortable and safe for horses and riders alike.
- Thanks in part to its lightweight construction, the vehicle remains under 3.5 t gross weight and does not require an additional driver’s license.
AL-KO on tour with horses and riders
Making light work of horse transportation
Germans have a saying: The greatest happiness on earth is on the back of a horse. This is also the view of body and vehicle manufacturer Heinrich Niehoff, who has dedicated himself to developing the lightest possible horse transporters. The medium-sized vehicle manufacturer from North Rhine-Westphalia puts horse welfare at the forefront of everything he does. Niehoff believes that horses can only perform to their full potential if transportation is safe and stress-free. The family business therefore had a very specific partner in mind for the body construction – AL-KO Vehicle Technology.
What began in 1895 as a small cartwright’s workshop for coaches and horse-drawn carriages in the Münsterland region of Germany is now one of the most renowned body builders for vans and trailers – Niehoff Karosserie- und Fahrzeugbau GmbH & Co. KG in Füchtorf, Germany. Over the past decades, well over 500 bodies have left the Niehoff production halls as custom-built horse transporters – for professional riders as well as for leisure riders and haulage companies.
Choose AL-KO lightweight chassis for less weight
When every gram counts
Designing and manufacturing these special transporters is no trivial matter: They must be durable and easy to maintain, offer high load capacity and good value retention, while also meeting customers’ individual requirements and demands. The most important feature is weight. Every gram counts so that it can be used with a class B driver’s license and without draining horse lovers’ wallets at freeway tolls in Austria or France, for example.
“Our aim was to build a 3.5-ton truck that could transport two horses,” says Managing Director Heinrich Niehoff, explaining the technical challenge. The problem: All standard bodies available in the 3.5 t class had too heavy a tare weight. He also wanted to use a Mercedes-Benz drive head and maximize the payload. Niehoff explains, “Our plan was to still have 1,200 kg to spare.” A plan for which, according to the Managing Director, there could only be one partner: “AL-KO is renowned for its very flexible bodies in terms of dimensions, weight and axle width. The company was therefore the right one for our needs.”
AL-KO lightweight chassis for flexible concepts
The optimal maximum weight is 3.5 t
According to Niehoff, the Mercedes-Benz drive head was previously only intended for motorhomes. “We received confirmation from Mercedes-Benz that the drive head could also be used for horseboxes.” This cleared the way to use the proven AL-KO frame to design the horse transporter with a maximum weight of 3.5 tons.
“There was no alternative.” All the available low frames from other manufacturers not only had too heavy tare weights, but were also considerably less flexible than the AL-KO frames. Niehoff goes into the details: “Combining our design with AL-KO has proven ideal, including in terms of driving safety and bodywork.” The new transporter has a very wide rear axle so that it is insensitive to fluctuations even when fully loaded. According to Niehoff, it was important to have the lowest possible entry height for the four-legged passengers, a low center of gravity and wide tracks.
“The payload was the deciding factor. There is no point developing a vehicle with a payload of 600 kg if it needs to be able to transport two horses at a time,” says the Managing Director. A horse weighs between 400 and 700 kg on average, depending on the breed. Certain coldblood breeds can easily weigh more than 1,000 kg, and the transporter must be able to transport at least one of these.
“Special ideas require special solutions. Our modular systems and chassis variants such as the lightweight chassis precisely offer such solutions,” says Philipp Nief, Key Account Manager Sales Light Commercial Vehicle at AL-KO. “This has paid off in full for our customer Niehoff and his horse transporter. We were able to offer him what he needed to turn his idea into reality – with our usual high quality and stability. Every customer success is also a success for our company.”
AL-KO VT: The partner for every situation
Safe and comfortable horse transportation
Today, Niehoff offers a transporter with a “sensible chassis for a sensible towing vehicle” for horses as well as people. The category B driving license played a special role in the partnership with AL-KO, as vans up to 3.5 t can be driven without an extended driving license. “Of course, this has insurance implications, but also impacts additional equipment such as saddles, horse feed and accessories.” For example, the vehicle can now include a 60 cm wide storage space that can accommodate a sleeping area with a bed for long journeys and competitions or a tack room.
The horses have plenty of space, too: “1.60 meters between the wheel arches, that’s how wide a standard two-horse trailer should be.” The horses are positioned with their center of gravity on the rear axle, explains Niehoff, to relieve the load on the front axle. Many other horse transporters are overloaded at the front. The Niehoff vehicle can also pull a horse box with another two animals in addition to the two horses in the transporter. “We are planning to produce around 10 to 20 vehicles per year – provided our suppliers can keep up.”
