Murphy’s Truck Centre is a family run business located in Ballymount, Dublin. Our premises is beside the M50 / M7 junction at the Red Cow. The main company was incorporated in 1964 and was started by John Murphy Sr and his Sons. However, Murphy’s have been in operation in Ballymount for over 100 years. The family has always been involved in motoring and machinery. John Murphy Sr was a railway engineer while his sons all were all motor mechanics.
In the 60’s and 70’s Ireland was quite a different place and the motor business quite removed from what it is today. Vehicle breakdowns were common and the units themselves tended to be quite old.
This lead Murphy’s into the heavy recovery business. Starting with a single AEC Mandator in 1964 the recovery business was good, by the mid 70’s Murphy’s had 5 heavy recovery units. To the right is an image of one of our Holmes 750 units operating on the Naas road in the mid 70’s.
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Our vehicles for the time were state of the art running Holmes 600 and 750 recovery equipment. This was a first for Ireland considering the cost of a Holmes 750 at the time was about half of what a good semi detached house cost. The Bodies and subframes were manufactured in-house. Our recovery bodies improved a lot over the years and by the early 80’s we did a good trade in making bodies and fitting Holmes recovery equipment.
The 80’s saw an increase in the recovery business and a shift in the type of units that were required. Trucks had gotten bigger and recovery units needed high horsepower and heavier lifting gear.
We were appointed Dublin’s sole dealership for Mitsubishi Trucks in 1987. Mitsubishi Trucks initial offerings in Ireland were quite different to the current range of vehicles. There was the FM and FK series of heavy trucks with gross vehicle weights of between 10 and 18 ton gross. These were fantastic trucks, manufactured in Japan and assembled in Dublin.
These vehicles with their 6 cylinder engines and robust build quality really cemented the Mitsubishi truck brand in Ireland.
These units were soon followed by the FH series, if the term "bulletproof" can be applied to any vehicle, the FH would certainly qualify. Powered by a five litre straight six, these trucks could see 1,000,000 miles without an engine rebuild, quite simply one of the finest trucks ever made. They never sold in huge numbers because the exchange rate was not favourable during the production run.
Due to the reduction in the range of the Mitsubishi Fuso vehicle's we proudly took on an Opel Commercial Dealership in 2019. The Opel range of Combi, Vivaro and Movano units are hugely flexible and available in a wide configuration of body types. The Movano trucks can be provided with Box, Tipper, Drop-side and Low platform variants.
Since 1980 we have tested vehicles under the Doe test, now know as the CVRT test. We take our testing seriously and strive to be fair and impartial in how we conduct the tests.
Over the last 15 years are activities have diversified somewhat, we have moved heavily into the truck and van hire market. We trade online under the vanrentals.ie brand. Customers can select their rental vehicles online, purchase insurance and be confident they are getting a quality commercial from a reputable company.
Ballymount, Clondalkin, Dublin 22
Co. Dublin, D22 R3H2,
