I like the idea of having a box truck horsebox for moving my horses, but most of the boxtrucks are fairly expensive. Has anyone ever retrofit a used uhaul box truck to be horse safe?
Doesn’t have the structure. Box trucks are built way different from horse trailers. Hire someone instead.
I contemplated this briefly as I have a box truck that is pretty much surplus to requirements in my business. I couldn’t see making it work without just putting a completely new body on the cab and chassis. It just wasn’t economically viable in this country.
Shame really, I’m English by origin, and I’d much prefer a nice little horsebox vs. a truck and trailer…
I suppose German trucks are build different, but back in the day I knew somebody hauled horses with a converted furniture truck.
As I recall, the thing had no windows (worked there, but I think roof vents) and basically a means to tie the horses to one side and hang beams as dividers.
You need somebody who nows vehicles as well as horses to look at your plans.
We saw a converted large van that had originally been built to
hold a medical imaging machine. It was repurposed by someone
to haul his horses. The clearance was much lower than a box
van (such as a uhaul). My husband (the engineer) also commented
that the floor of that vehicle was much sturdier than the usual
van as the machines it was designed to hold are very heavy.
So I’d suggest if you want to convert a vehicle to horse hauling,
look for a vehicle originally designed for hauling heavy items
and you may want a lower than usual clearance.
Way back in the 80s, when I was eventing in Area 1, there was someone with a big U-Haul truck he had converted for horses. Put a fold up ramp on the back, and he put at least 3 horses in it. It was not fancy, no dividers or anything, but it worked for him.
I once looked at doing this. The base truck was an “expiditor” or “hot shot” type vehicle. These are used to move shipments that require quick delivery. Some are small in weight and volume; most are not.
Here is a quick look at the types of light vehicles used:
http://www.hotshotcarrier.com/truckinformation.php
For larger vehicles go here:
http://www.truckpaper.com/list/list.aspx?bcatid=27&catid=254
This latter listing is only a tiny fraction of what’s available on TruckPaper. Search by manufacturer and model and you’ll find literally thousands of possibilities.
As noted, you have to know the specifications of the box construction. Sometimes that’s clear by looking at it; sometimes not. Most are built by reputable firms so if you know the pedigree of the truck you can go back to the maker and ask them questions about it and its construction.
My trucker friends tell me that “hot shot” medium duty trucks (Freightliners, Internationals, Peterbilts, etc.) are usually replaced at 300,000 miles or so. This is because the B50 (the number of miles at which point there is a 50% chance of major engine difficulty) is just about 300,000 miles. To the operators, and customers, of these trucks reliability is more important than cost. They often have nice sleepers on them as they were driven by “teams” allowing them to stay on the road for long hours.
We decided not to do it as, for us, the truck-trailer combo is more cost effective than a dedicated horse hauler. I found a number of nice vehicles, newly traded, with adequate box strength, well maintained. Cost ran from $25,000 to about $150,000 depending on year, mileage, and features.
G.
Wasn’t mine, but many years ago, I worked for a polo player who had an Isuzu NPR box truck as a horse hauler - had a small box between cab and big box that was set up for tack, and we regularly hauled 3 (and every once in a while, 4) polo ponies to matches in it. It had tie rings inside, no windows, roof vents, and the whole back wall would lower to make a ramp (it was kind of steep, but well matted). Ponies traveled really well in it, and it was easy to drive with a little practice. The toughest thing was putting the ramp back up - it was VERY heavy, and took a bit of practice to get the hang of doing it alone. He did have some sort of divider system that could be installed in the box to make it more like a regular straight load trailer, but we never used it.
There’s no reason you couldn’t do it, but depending on the base truck there are lots of things that would be expensive to do properly. Also furniture is not particularly dense so by the time you’d done a bunch of things properly there might not be much cargo allowance left over for horses.
The floor might or might not be strong enough, but will definitely not be designed to get wet. The walls will not be kickproof. A hydraulic tailgate is expensive. A winch tailgate is a pain. A spring and hand lift tailgate is a massive pain. The walls will not be strong enough at specific points to attach dividers where you want them. The roof will have no strength at all to attach the top of dividers too.
If you have time and a welder in the family it might be a fun project. if you already had the truck for “free” it might be worthwhile. If you are buying the truck then paying others to do all the fit-out I’d expect it to cost more that a used purpose built horse body and have a bunch of compromises.
This is essentially what I want – http://www.stadiumtrucks.com/pdf%20documents/Black_Pearl.pdf BUT I can’t afford the 6 figure price tag. Why so pricey? Is it just because it is marketed to a high end equestrian market?
[QUOTE=fizzyfuzzybuzzy;7697274]
This is essentially what I want – http://www.stadiumtrucks.com/pdf%20documents/Black_Pearl.pdf BUT I can’t afford the 6 figure price tag. Why so pricey? Is it just because it is marketed to a high end equestrian market?[/QUOTE]
well, because there is such a small market, these babies are not exactly mass produced.
For giggles I checked school bus pricing. I forgot why, something about a used one.
So my surprise I realized that the 26 seater was a good 20k higher than the one seating twice as many people.
Then of course it dawned on me, thinking about it in a round about way: The school district runs, oh, maybe 100 busses, only a handfull are not the 50+ capacity ones. And we are a small district!
So less demand, with virtually the same involvement to build one (chasis, cab, motor, etc) drives the price up.
And in the case of horse boxes, I am sure there are also many steps done by hand only, that RVs etc have probably automated by now.
I have always wanted to do that!!!
$168K does seem like a lot. That’s only about a $40K cab chassis they are building it on so I am sure a functionally similar design would be possible at a significantly lower price. Perhaps even $80K without all the leather and walnut veneer.
You can often see used vans at http://www.frankdibella.com/vans
[QUOTE=fizzyfuzzybuzzy;7697274]
This is essentially what I want – http://www.stadiumtrucks.com/pdf%20documents/Black_Pearl.pdf BUT I can’t afford the 6 figure price tag. Why so pricey? Is it just because it is marketed to a high end equestrian market?[/QUOTE]
I suspect these are “one of a kind” vehicles made with lots of hand labor. That’s going to translate to “pricey.”
Also, most folks probably come to the same conclusion that we did: that a single purpose vehicle is not economically viable. You can “scoot” in a box truck if you need to (and might sometimes give an advantage) but who needs that capacity to make a quick trip to the store for bread and milk or a quick run to feed store for a few bags of grain? And such a vehicle would be a non-starter for use in the field building or restoring a fence, setting out a round bale, etc.
If you’ve got lots of jack then you can probably afford box truck and pickup truck. Most of us mortals, however, don’t!!! 
G.
You can get a used van a lot cheaper than that. Check out Frank Dibella’s website:
I love to go to his site and just drool. Sigh.
Dibella makes essentially the same thing as pictured. I think they are more like 60-70k new. They have lots of bigger used ones.
Dibella’s site is my fantasy playground! :lol: Well, at least now I know I don’t need to try and retrofit a truck, when I’m ready, I can pay them a visit! Thanks guys!
I had one. Converted a '73 IH former Hertz rental truck with an 18 foot box into a six horse head to head van. Had a center ramp that was a beyotch to pull in and out, but the van itself worked great. I had the sliding bus windows on the side. And it was set up so that once horses were out, I could fold down a bunk and use it as my “motel”, especially if I could plug into electric.
It was not pretty…had that ugly school bus yellow color…but it served me very well.
Oh, and did I mention it cost me less than 4k? 
[QUOTE=4cornersfarm;7697566]
You can get a used van a lot cheaper than that. Check out Frank Dibella’s website:
I love to go to his site and just drool. Sigh.[/QUOTE]
I love this van http://www.frankdibella.com/gdocscms/content/images/vehicles/usedvans/1971_international_loadstar_1600_horse_van.jpg
It has the “Acme” Horses lettering in the front. Reminds me of generic cans of food as a child.
[QUOTE=emipou;7699423]
I love this van http://www.frankdibella.com/gdocscms/content/images/vehicles/usedvans/1971_international_loadstar_1600_horse_van.jpg
It has the “Acme” Horses lettering in the front. Reminds me of generic cans of food as a child.[/QUOTE]
We had one just like that when I was a teenager, but ours was hunter green with yellow lettering.
