Dennis Eagle Limited is a UK-based

refuse truck A garbage truck is a truck specially designed to collect municipal solid waste and transport it to a solid waste treatment facility, such as a landfill, recycling center or transfer station. In Australia they are commonly called rubbish truc ...

manufacturer owned by Terberg Environmental.

Overview

Before operations were merged with Terberg Environmental, Dennis Eagle employed a workforce of over 600 across its two manufacturing sites and service network, which included nine depots as well as mobile engineers based throughout the UK. Body and

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

assembly took place at the

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whi ...

headquarters, with cabs built at the additional manufacturing facility in

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...

. Producing over 1,000 refuse collection vehicles each year, the company also had an international network of distributors.

History

Dennis Brothers had made specialised vehicles for municipal authorities from the early 1920s though they were primarily builders of chassis for buses, fire engines and haulage lorries. Eagle Engineering Company, agricultural and general engineers of

, was incorporated in 1907. It made oil and petrol internal combustion stationary engines and some small agricultural equipment and provided municipalities with refuse vehicles and road sweepers and tower lorries at relatively inexpensive prices sometimes built on Dennis chassis. Soon after the start of

the Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

Eagle turned from engines to building road trailers and semi-trailers for articulated vehicles. They also added an electrical and wireless department and produced Chakophone wireless sets until 1936. Ownership changed a number of times during the 1960s. Dennis Eagle's history goes back to the autumn of 1971 when

Hestair Group Heston Aircraft Company was a British aircraft manufacturer based at Heston Aerodrome, Middlesex, England. Starting in 1934 the company produced a number of aircraft designs beginning with the Heston Phoenix and the Hordern-Richmond Autoplane. ...

bought Yorkshire Vehicles Limited in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

and Eagle Engineering Co in Warwick. Six months later Hestair bought Dennis Motor Holdings and thereafter managed the businesses as the Vehicle Division of Hestair Engineering. Municipal bodies were made in Warwick by Hestair Eagle (incorporating Yorkshire Vehicles), municipal chassis were made by Dennis in

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

, cabs were made in Blackpool. Hestair set up a special Environmental Vehicles Division for its waste management activities. In 1985 Hestair moved municipal chassis manufacture from the Dennis plant at Guildford to a new 125,000 square foot plant on the Heathcote Industrial Estate at Warwick. They were joined there by Hestair Eagle's municipal bodies operations which moved across Warwick from Saltisford. The new Dennis Eagle plant was the largest refuse vehicle manufacturing site in Europe. In 1991

Shelvoke & Drewry Shelvoke and Drewry was a Letchworth, Hertfordshire manufacturer of special purpose commercial vehicles. It was best known for its innovative waste collection vehicles that were the preferred choice of municipal authorities in the UK together ...

's design rights were bought from the receiver. Environmental Vehicles, Dennis Eagle, now represented around one-third of Hestair's Vehicle Division. Following more changes of parent company ( Hestair to Trinity to Dennis Group to Mayflower) Dennis Eagle was sold in July 1999 to NatWest Equity Partners. In January 2004, Dennis Eagle was purchased by

ABN Amro ABN or abn may refer to: Companies * ABN AMRO Group, a Dutch bank group * ABN AMRO, sometimes referred to as "ABN" in shorthand, is a Dutch state-owned bank * Algemene Bank Nederland, a now-defunct Dutch bank Radio, news and television organizat ...

. In 2007, Dennis Eagle was purchased by

Ros Roca Ros Roca SA is a Spanish manufacturer of waste management machinery managed from Tàrrega, Catalonia, Spain and is a subsidiary of Terberg RosRoca Group. Ros Roca was founded in 1953 by Ferran Ros and Ramon Roca i Sala. They manufactured agricultur ...

. Ros Roca and Terberg Environmental merged in 2016, with Terberg holding the controlling interest. The various companies within the new group retained their trading names. Terberg Ros Roca Group to be based in Warwick
SMMT Newsletter 9 March 2016

Dennis Eagle products

References

External links

* {{Automotive industry in the United Kingdom, state=autocollapse Companies based in Warwick E Motor vehicle manufacturers of England Truck manufacturers of the United Kingdom Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1907 Waste collection vehicles 1907 establishments in England