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Collapsed trailer manufacturer Boalloy was on the verge of launching a cut-price curtainsider called the Tautliner Express, MT understands. A company insider says the firm had been working on the concept for the past six months in a bid to compete with the likes of SDC and Schmitz, and the first prototype had been delivered to the Congleton, Cheshire plant around three weeks ago.

The Tautliner Express would have had a bolt-together chassis made by sister company Concept Trailers in Northern  Ireland - part of parent JMF - with a simple bolt-on body added at a new plant the firm was looking to open in the Wigan/Skelmersdale area. The source adds: "The main idea behind it was that it was much easier to fit together using relatively unskilled labour." He says labour costs at the Congleton site were one of the main reasons for Boall-oy's high prices - the new design would have halved manufacturing costs and would have been priced at around £13,500, some £3,000 lower than a regular Boalloy trailer.

Additionally, it is believed that three former Boalloy directors - production director Russell Adams, former financial director David Hancock and Stuart Harle - are looking to resurrect the Fastruck express rigid bodybuilding business. Sources suggest they are in negotiations with administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers to buy the business, which had a number of large clients, including Iveco and Ryder.

Sources within Boalloy say it was in financial difficulties even  before last year's takeover by Northern Irish firm JMF. One says: "The takeover was supposed to cement our future instead it's the end of an era. There were big plans, but they never came to fruition - I think they [JMF] bit off more than they could chew." Another adds: "Before JMF bought us it would have been fair to say that we would have been closing the doors last Christmas." Both insiders say auditors arrived at the firm last week, but staff assumed it was for the end-of-year accounts. One says: "We got a bit more suspicious when we heard bills weren't being paid, but there were no answers from senior management, then yesterday receivers came in and gave everybody notice."