Kentucky Trailers manufactures highly customized trailers for clients, including NASCAR and the government.

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After purchasing Kentucky Wagon – North America’s largest wagon manufacturer – in 1936, Kentucky Trailer founder R.C. Tway refocused the company on trailers, and now the company is the largest trailer manufacturer for the moving and storage industry. “We’re virtually the only player in the furniture vans business,” says Barry Blum, operations team leader and vice president of purchasing. “That’s really what carved out our place in the market.”

But the company’s abilities don’t stop there – Blum says Kentucky Trailer has the unique ability to build trailers to suit every customer’s needs. “We’re very much a niche player – we do a lot of things companies don’t do or don’t want to do,” he states. “We can build anything that our customers can get permitted to run on the highway. They can specify to a fine detail what options they’d like, including custom wheelbases, custom axle configurations, lights – whatever features and options they’d like on them.”

Kentucky Trailer’s engineering department is able to design trailers with many doors. Trailers with multiple doors often cause problems for high-volume trailer manufacturers because they can’t run repeatedly down a manufacturing line, Blum says.

The company typically manufactures full-size, semi truck-sized units, which typically have a standard highway length of 53 feet. Where laws permit, Kentucky Trailer produces 57- and 59-foot-long trailers, and it’s made trailers as long as 75 feet for off-road applications. “We don’t do small-size, U-Haul type [trailers] – only full-size,” Blum explains, “28 feet is probably the smallest we do.”

Kentucky Trailer makes 1 percent of trailers manufactured in North America, and it serves food and beverage, professional sports and government clients. Kentucky Trailer tends to work with clients that don’t have to haul heavy items, but “just want to get as much stuff into the trailer as possible,” Blum says. For instance, “Frito-Lay buys units that just hold as many chips as possible, because they don’t weigh anything, they just want to move as many as possible,” he explains.

Another high-profile client is NASCAR, for which it builds trailers to ship racecars. “Many different options are available, from single-car haulers to multi-car transporters with lounges and full-width awnings,” the company explains. “We specifically design our racing transporters to be light-weight, durable and functional – options that are very important to a mobile race team.”

Mobile marketing – including mobile showrooms, media centers, fashion tours, product training and corporate image campaigns – also is a specialty for Kentucky Trailer. “Our design and engineering teams are among the most experienced and talented in the industry,” the company says. “We work collaboratively with you to realize your specific objectives – from providing a high-impact, hands-on experience with your products, to creating corporate brand experiences at industry trade shows or events.”

Local, state and federal government agencies, such as the FBI and Homeland Security, turn to Kentucky Trailers to make mobile command centers for situations in which personnel must be near an event or crisis. These centers provide from 425 to 1,000 square feet of workspace for applications such as mobile emergency centers, contingency plan office space, field training centers, hazardous materials control, mobile health and counseling centers, and technology and data centers.

And to provide clients with top-notch service in addition to its top-notch trailers, Kentucky Trailer has service centers in Kentucky, Utah, Missouri, California, Florida, North Carolina and Indiana.

Complete Customization
Command units and training centers require unique custom finishes, something Blum says the company’s technology center in Walled Lake, Mich., is suited for. After Kentucky Trailer’s manufacturing center in Louisville builds the shell, it is shipped to the technology center for custom finishing and, if necessary, the addition of special sections that fold out of the trailer.   

“Kentucky Trailer Technologies has a vast range of products in its portfolio,” the company states. “We build everything from car haulers to mobile command centers and some of the most innovative mobile marketing displays. And, when it comes to expandable trailers, we're a leader in the industry. Choose from single-side expandables, double-side expandables and our newest, state-of-the-art skyview expandable, which allows for a complete second floor in your trailer.

“For example, some recent jobs have been training simulators for military applications, and the technology center will handle interior finishing, custom wiring, outfitting for electronics, satellite reception, radar and basically anything the customer can dream up,” Blum explains. “The trailers are totally self-contained – they carry their own generators, heating and ventilation systems.”

While Kentucky Trailer usually completes these services, Blum says sometimes customers work with a specialized supplier of some electronics, and the suppliers will either give the company the equipment or come into the technology center and work alongside Kentucky Trailer employees.

The company is also an industry leader in building expandable trailers, which can have “skyview”, single-side or double-side expandables. “[Our] expandable trailer is built with one expandable section on each side of an up to 53-foot trailer,” Kentucky Trailers explains.

“During the set-up procedure, these expandable sections are pushed out hydraulically in about 90 seconds per section, and when fully expanded, a usable interior area of nearly 1,000 square feet is achieved. Windows, doorways and removable staircases can be incorporated into any section.”

Lightening Up
Offering the flexibility of a custom manufacturer in a down economy has been challenging, Blum says, but Kentucky Trailer’s recent move into a new, 250,000-square-foot plant on 25 acres has made that process easier. “A trailer that used to take six to eight weeks to manufacture now takes three to four,” Blum states. “We’ve dramatically reduced the amount of work in process, and our overall inventory is 25 percent of what it was three years ago.”

Blum credits CEO Gary Smith Sr. for making the decision to move into a new facility at a time when many companies are in a wait-and-see mode due to the economy. “We didn’t slow down, but we accelerated plans into our new plant, and now we stand to benefit from that,” Blum says.

Before the move, the company had occupied the same facility where it was founded more than 70 years ago. “Our old facility was on 35 acres and had numerous buildings, and it was spread out and very unorganized,” he continues. “Moving into one facility has brought more efficiency in the material flow.”

Successful Tradition
Smith is married to Kentucky Trailer founder R.C. Tway’s great-granddaughter, and Blum says the company maintains a family atmosphere. Many of its employees’ families have worked at the company for generations. “They’re loyal to the company and dedicated to their craft, and that’s what’s given us the reputation we have,” he says. 

Kentucky Trailer has come a long way since it produced flatbed trailers for the Army during World War II. Throughout its existence, Kentucky Trailer’s focus has evolved along with the ever-changing transportation industry.    

“In the early 1960s, Kentucky Trailer developed its customized drop-frame trailer to meet the unique demands of the moving and storage industry,” the company states. “This market has become the mainstay of Kentucky Trailer and has led to its reputation as the major manufacturer of custom trailers in the truck trailer industry. The versatility of our associates enables us to produce these customized trailers for over five decades.

“Since 1936, it’s been a migration from wagons through other trailer-type products and, really, it was in the 1950s with the post-war change in demographics and development in the moving industry that we came to produce the furniture and moving vans,” Blum explains. “And we operated until 2009 on that same property, so it’s been a very proud history of manufacturing.”