The milk-MAN delivers
Teich-Trans’ 80th anniversary special edition MAN TGX 18.510 shows how wonderful tradition can be. The business aims to make an impression by showing off its long company history on the roads.
Delivering milk has a long history at the business Teich-Trans, located in Oberlausitz.
What began in 1941 with a converted Buick and milk churns that had to be heaved on and off the truck by hand is now managed with nine MAN tankers.
When they started, they transported anything that needed to go from A to B – not just milk churns, but fridges, barrels and whatever people wanted to transport. On top of that, the young company also didn’t baulk at the idea of providing transport for people. For Dennis Teich’s predecessors, this meant quickly converting a truck into passenger transportation: “A converted truck with seats on the back,” as he puts it. Specifically, this meant that Alfred Teich bought a bus body with a rear entrance, and attached it onto an old Ford truck. This vehicle, known as the “rabbit hutch”, took children to the schools in Mücka and Sproitz. Of course, the bus service part of the business, which they are still operating today under the name Teich-Touristik GmbH, now works in a fundamentally different way. They have a total of 10 buses, including the odd MAN vehicle.
An anniversary truck instead of a company celebration
Unfortunately, the business’s big 80th anniversary celebration had to be cancelled due to coronavirus. However, Dennis put his heart and soul into designing a special truck instead. The new MAN TGX was turned into a stylish 80th anniversary edition for the celebration. Central to its design is a round emblem which is repeated in several places as the company’s trade mark. It appears on the driver’s door and as a stainless steel logo that Dennis had made specially, as well as in the interior of the black MAN milk truck. A variety of individual stickers, both outside and inside, emphasise the truck’s unique character. The truck also has various details with a black powder finish. To bring the family ideas to life in the special edition MAN truck, the family Teich put a lot of faith in the MAN service outlet at Bautzen and in Paul Martin Vogt, the salesperson who was his point of contact. Dennis is appreciative and happy that everything was able to function so seamlessly.
He made the first trips in the new truck himself. “It’s a very coherent vehicle, and something brand new. You can’t really compare it to the old models,” says Dennis. It took a while for him to get used to all of the new features. But he was won over by the position of the wheel, the mirrors and the shape of the windscreen, he adds.
And what about the other drivers? At Teich-Trans, the trucks are provided to several drivers, who all form teams. The vehicles are then driven on a rotating basis. “Whoever is responsible for the truck is very proud of it, in any case,” says Dennis, and the others in the team are happy with the modern MAN tanker, too.
The phrase “once an MAN fan, always an MAN fan”, applies to Teich-Trans too. Here, the milk is only delivered in MAN vehicles. “We only became acquainted with MAN after reunification. Then we started using them, and we have carried on with them to this day.”
It’s great to see that, along with the milk, MAN has become part of the company’s tradition.
