Geelhoed brothers buy Scania V8 for their father

Usually it is the other way around. More often within a family business, the father invests in new equipment for one of the children. But at Gebroeders Geelhoed B.V. from Middelharnis, they take a different approach and Lars and Niels decided to buy a fat Scania with an S-cab for their father Joop. And so father Geelhoed drives all over Europe and both brothers sit in the office.  

Of course, things are a little more nuanced than the above suggests. "Our company has been around for eight years now and in that time we have gone from two vehicles to 23," says Lars. "And apart from this Scania for our father, we have three more in the pipeline. My brother and I would never have succeeded without our father's support in the background. He is seasoned in the ADR transport of liquids and gases."

"When we each started for ourselves with a car as Geelhoed Brothers, my father did not work in the business. That didn't happen until later. The first few years, until we had eleven cars, I drove myself and did the planning from behind the wheel. Well, that's always stress. Besides, at many companies we go to, you're not allowed to make phone calls at all. So as a planner, acquirer, troubleshooter and whatnot in between, you were always off the air way too long, too."

But that quickly improved when it became clear to me, that I am possibly more of an entrepreneur than a driver. From the moment I went in, we really grew fast. My father is now 60 and really a driver at heart. So we suggested he get back into driving and that V8 came along. My youngest brother Sven also rides with us as a driver; currently on a V8 Silver Griffin, but soon on a new R450."

"We thought we'd buy a new 530. And then a bit in an old skool look. But our father had other ideas about that. He went for the new 590 with the new gearbox. And, of course, air suspension all round and nothing old skool but an S-cab with just about everything in it, including standard air conditioning and an espresso machine. And with spray work by Bronk from Beusichem. He had it all pictured the way he wanted his probably last truck.

Geelhoed drives in chemicals and gases on behalf of industry. "About a little more than half of what we do falls under ADR. We specialize in transporting ADR and non-ADR products by road, both nationally and internationally. But these are all semi-finished products or raw materials for industry. We also drive gases. We regularly transport CO₂ for English industry. That is going fine. We do not suffer from congestion and delays or a lot of formalities even after the Brexit. We drive ourselves as well as with tank containers that we drop off for unaccompanied transport. In addition, it makes a huge difference in the paperwork that we always only transport one product at a time."

Why we drive Scania? Well, we also have a couple of other brands but most of them are indeed Scania and that will be one more now because we are trading in another brand. That also definitely has to do with the dealer. But first of all, we just think they are super cars. And the look of a Scania also fits our kind of work a bit. We drive highly qualified drivers with high-quality cargo. A premium truck is part of that. Moreover, we value comfort because we still drive all over Europe. From Poland to deep into Greece. So the guys are gone all week. Then you grant them good equipment."