the 1950 ’ s Charles , Pat and Frank Musso were onion farmers who became frustrated with their inability to harvest crops in a timely manner because of the inconsistent flow of migrant workers . Those frustrations would soon turn to innovation when Charles designed and built the first onion harvesting machine that would turn out to be wildly successful . While not giving up on the onion business , they began to build and sell this now patented piece of equipment to other farmers , and soon had a thriving manufacturing facility up and running . The one pitfall was that onion harvesters are only used at harvest time and only “ so many ” are needed for a geographical area , they could see there would be a natural saturation point , and if they were going to be out of the onion business , they would need to diversify their manufacturing to accommodate that dream .
It turns out the brothers had built quite a reputation for themselves . Along with a little bit of luck and good timing , they began manufacturing truck equipment and never looked back . Fast forward 70 + years , Air-Flo is a manufacturer of premium quality dump truck bodies for a full range of trucks from small class 5 trucks all the way to class 8 trucks for large commercial applications . They also manufacture “ Packers ” ( garbage truck bodies ) as part of their line-up .
Just like his father before him , Tom Musso , current President of Air-Flo , made the call that it was time to innovate once again . “ We ’ ve been in the manufacturing business a long time and we know we can compete with any builder . We noticed a trend toward smaller vehicles hauling similar loads , although smaller to what our large equipment was hauling — it was a natural evolution to design an easy to haul heavy-duty equipment style trailer that has all the flexibility needed for the everyday user .”
They call them “ Low profile dump trailers ” and are designed with three sizes to start : 10ft , 12ft and 14 feet . With payload ratings from 8,000 lbs to 10,400 lbs , these trailers are no slouch in the capacity department . All trailers are powder-coated and have a barn door with swing bottom ( spreader ) tailgates that
34 NATDA Magazine www . natda . org