USA – Many in the industry will not have heard of JB Poindexter, but they will know several of the brands which sit underneath the Poindexter umbrella: Morgan, Morgan Olson, Reading Truck, and so on. With no less than nine business units, it was no surprise to see the Poindexter group take up a large space in the centre of the ACT Expo 2024 show floor last May. With some of the vehicles on display, the main point of interest was not the vehicle body but some feature of its interior configuration: for instance, the Masterack tool shelving in the back of a converted Ford Transit van. But several of the vehicles were shown in order to promote the work that Poindexter’s brands have done to design bodies which are better suited to the characteristics and demands of the electric driveline. One of these was ‘Project Blackjack’, a proof-of-concept vehicle with a lightweight and aerodynamic Morgan truck body.

Based on an ‘International eMV’ chassis, the Blackjack is a medium-duty truck with a chassis GVWR of 25,999 lbs and a payload of 8,000 lbs in the dry-freight box body. The exterior of the body and the sideguards were designed with aerodynamics in mind: the overall shape of the vehicle reduces drag by 20% compared to the typical Morgan truck body. The body is also lighter by up to 40%, equating to around 1,800 lbs. It is made of a mixture of composites and aluminium: a hardwood floor and composite foam core panel walls sit around an aluminium subframe.