Coort Transport chooses Scania again

For Coort, the truck is an expansion to the fourth truck in the company, which has long run only Scania.

Karel Coort Transport is a family business. Recently Charles, who by the way everyone calls Charles, retired and passed the baton to his son Marinus. "Only you don't notice much of that yet because I still drive almost every day," Charles says cheerfully. "And also my wife still does parts of the bookkeeping. But my son is now officially the director."

Coort Transport does a lot of conditioned driving. "We are in the transportation of plants, mostly as nursery stock between growers and gardeners. With other vehicles we are also in flowers, vegetables and fruit. But this new Scania will drive in the stones with a stone trailer behind it. Hence the third axle against overloading the drive axle. Because otherwise the driver always has to load and unload very precisely."

That Charles still drives almost daily despite his retirement is because of the tandem work with his son. "We take care of transporting fruits and vegetables to various wholesalers and stores in Germany. We take turns doing an evening or a day trip. We drive in two shifts so the truck makes about 220,000 km annually. So the Scania is only stationary for a few hours a day. But I want to start phasing that out. So Marinus will have to hire a driver at some point anyway. Then maybe I'll do some jumping around."

"By that time, we will also have to think of something for the administration," Marinus contemplates. "Because now I do that in addition to my rides together with my mother. But of course she will then do less, and she is right. That does mean we will have more personnel costs in the future. Which has to come out of the same four trucks. How I'm going to solve that, I don't know yet. Because on the one hand I want to grow a little but not too much. I do want to keep the family character of this club of people. That is also our strength to our regular customers. But time will tell. Sometimes something comes your way that makes you suddenly want to expand."

At Coort, since the arrival of the latest generation of Scania, they have invariably opted for the largest S-cab and 500 hp. "With an average of 160,000 km per year, we drive a lot of miles because the work takes us through the Benelux, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. With occasional trips to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia. Then you want to offer the guys space and luxury. That is why we only drive Scania. We don't actually know any drivers who have anything against that."

Anyway, Coort and Scania have been going together for a very long time. "My father was already driving the brand. And as a little boy I already knew for sure: I want a Scania later too. I'm not used to anything else. Besides, when I look at the consumption and the TCO over the years, Scania has never disappointed us. Consumption is certainly very good with us. But the contact with the dealers in Nuth and Venlo, where the trucks are serviced, also plays an important role. "If you drive a lot, the question is not whether something can break down. But how quickly and how well the dealer solves it for you. So that's thick and fast. The dealer takes care of everything for us. From the repair and maintenance contract to financing and insurance. There is mutual trust and they understand our business. If you want to finance something through a bank. Then you spend weeks supplying figures. Our Scania dealer knows us, which works a lot easier and faster."

"That's also how we get the current car my father and I drive," Marinus says. We always buy an S and with 500 hp. But ours is an S450. That's because we suddenly needed a truck very quickly. New would take too long. So our dealer in Nuth pulled out all the stops and found this one, then one year old. Of course, we did put it in our color."

Because the Scania Ruby Red is part of Coort's corporate identity. "Along with the striping of the famous Scania Red Passion," Charles and Marinus tell us. "Because we also had one of those. That was a V8 but with that 500 hp six-cylinder, we don't need that anymore. What we do find important is, for example, a perfect seat with ventilation, standard air conditioning, a retarder, ACC, good LED lighting and a Scania Nightlock. These are things that give our drivers extra safety and comfort every day."