1.25 Tonne Mining Vehicle
 The Kowari, is an Australian desert marsupial, a little smaller than a house rat but considered the power house of Australian marsupials, it is often described as the roughest toughest little bloke on four legs, residing in Northern Queensland (QLD), Australia.
Underground mining has always required the use of light vehicles to work in this harsh environment. Conventional four wheel drive (4WD) vehicles often have major failings causing excessive downtime, high maintenance costs and early replacement costs. Therefore heavily modified production vehicles have been the preferred option until now.
Hailing from Townsville, on the northeast coast of Queensland Australia comes the Kowari Motors custom built underground mining vehicle.
The Kowari mining vehicle has been created to fill a void in the market with a vehicle designed to do certain jobs in certain conditions. This niche allows for the Kowari to be custom designed, in conjunction with the customer, to tailor exactly the type of vehicle needed for each individual's end use.
Designed for simplicity in maintenance, ease of repair, and coupled with components and systems of proven record, reliability and availability of parts and service, the Kowari is engineered for superior performance and handling.
Like the Kowari marsupial, the Kowari 4WD vehicles are built specifically for the harsh environments of underground mines. And size for size they are the toughest vehicles on four wheels in these environments.
As the Kowari is custom designed with full input from the customer, each vehicle has options, which will vary, with each order. The basic features however, will provide the base for a mining vehicle that will be purpose built for long life, good performance, and simplicity of maintenance and ease of repair.
The Kowari cab chassis is innovative in design, robust and simple to maintain and dedicated to applications in the mining industry as a personnel carrier, utility or an emergency service vehicle.
Its simplicity and corrosion resistant attributes are well suited to remote and difficult locations.
3 Tonne Tilt Tray
 Kowari Motors has a new addition to its stable of purpose built 3-tonne carrying capacity mine trucks. Designed to carry 2.4 M X 4M sheets of mesh within the confines of the vehicle, the Kowari 3 tonne tilt tray truck exhibits flexibility not previously experienced in this type of vehicle.
To enable the vehicle to carry such wide loads the side of the tray extends out allowing the mesh sheets to be clamped inside the tray edges.
Once the mesh is loaded, the tray can be tilted to reduce the overall width of the load thus making maneuvering underground very easy.
The advantage of carrying these wide loads in this position is the space available under the tilt tray for consumables such as rock bolts, nuts, tension plates and splits sets etc.
The tray controls are situated between the driver and passenger's seats for ease of operation and to ensure maximum safety for the operator. The controls have been designed for simplicity of operation with all functions clearly marked.
Other safety features of the Kowari 3 Tonne Tilt Tray Truck are.
- Safety support legs are automatically engaged when the tray is in its full tilt position.
- Safety leg retraction can only be operated from within the cabin ensuring maximum safety for the operator
- Lockable isolation switch for tray controls.
When not being used to carry mesh the Tilt Tray Truck can double as a 3 Tonne Flatbed Truck.
3 Tonne Mine Truck
 Recently designed and developed the Kowari purpose built vehicle with its 3-tonne carrying capacity exhibits flexibility not previously available in the mining industry.
In recent years the cost of owning, maintaining, insuring and operating vehicles has increased dramatically. Each vehicle in an operator's fleet contributes significantly to the cost of the operation and in most cases the vehicle is not utilised to its full extent. This is especially true of vehicles that are configured for use in some applications. This results in added cost of ownership and poor equipment availability.
To reduce these costs and to permit full utilisation of various vehicles, KOWARI MOTORS has developed a vehicle to allow full utilisation. A Modular System that allows one vehicle to perform a multitude of functions within the operation. By utilising one unit to do many different tasks the cost of ownership can be reduced by a significant amount. The cost of operation is reduced also because one driver is able carry out many different operations with the one vehicle, resulting in more productivity from the employee and less training costs to license workers.
11 Seater Personnel Carrier
 Kowari Motor's all new 11 Seater Personnel Carrier was developed out a need to comply with the coming requirements of having all passengers facing the direction of travel.
This vehicle can be configured with barn doors on the rear. Fitted with a back saver crane or a Lyco Loader, the 11 Seater Personnel Carrier can double as a service vehicle for pick up and deliveries.
Another advantage of the 11 Seater Personnel Carrier is its ability to double as an ambulance or be configured as a dedicated emergency vehicle.
The current model 4WDs do not have the length in the rear to allow a stretcher to be carried with the rear doors closed, nor do they have the carrying capacity for personnel.
It has become common practice to carry out extensive modifications on current model 4WD station wagons, however they still do not have the carrying capacity of the Kowari 11 Seater Personnel Carrier.
Made of the same design criteria and rugged construction as the MK II and 3 Tonne Kowari vehicles, the 11 Seater Personnel Carrier is ideal for the harshest of underground or open cut mine conditions.
22 Seater Personnel Carrier
 Recently designed and developed the Kowari purpose built vehicle with its 22 people including the driver carrying capacity exhibits flexibility not previously available.
The 22 Seater Personnel Carrier was developed for the mining industry out a need to move a considerable number of people to and from the work place economically and also to comply with the coming requirements of having all passengers facing the direction of travel.
The chassis and drive train components of the 22 Seater Personnel Carrier are the same as the 3 Tonne Kowari Truck. These basic features provide the bases for the vehicle to be purpose built for long life, good performance, simplicity of maintenance and ease of repair. Another advantage of the 22 Seater Personnel Carrier is its ability to be configured as a dedicated emergency or maintenance vehicle. |
