Hot on the heels of the news that UD may be receiving a blood transfusion of sorts by outsourcing the production of its medium trucks to rival Isuzu, comes the news that UD is helping Australians donate blood with the Australian Red Cross Blood Service taking delivery of three GK 17 420 prime movers to help haul its fleet of mobile donor centres throughout QLD and NSW.
Tasked with transporting the gift of life, the Australian Red Cross Service turned to UD Trucks for a prime mover suitable for moving the mobile donor centres around the suburbs and transporting the cargo of donated blood to the regional processing centres. The solution was a GK 17 420 Quon fitted with an ESCOT-V automated manual transmission.
Jon McLean, Vice President of UD Trucks Australia handed over the keys to Red Cross Blood Service Transport Manager Ian Morris, for the Australian.
“We feel honoured to work with such a fantastic organisation such as the Australian Red Cross Blood Service,” said McLean. “Supporting the operation with prime movers really opened our eyes to the amazing work that they do, and that’s why we’re launching our UD Trucks Red25 program.”
As well as delivering three trucks to Red Cross UD got into the spirit by having the Red25 unit visit its HQ in Brisbane for a special blood donation.
Red25 is the group donation program of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service that aims to unite organisations and groups across the country to achieve 25 per cent of the blood donations needed by Australia.
“It’s great to see the UD crew get behind this great cause and roll up their sleeves,” said Ian Morris. “We’re on track to save over 60 lives in just a few hours thanks to the UD Trucks team donating today!”
“The new Quons have already been a huge hit with the drivers,” said Ian. “They’re perfectly spec’d for our requirements, and make the drivers’ job easier, especially the ESCOT-V AMT,” he added.
