A Dump Truck for the 21st Century

Conceptual "tipper" truck adds efficiency to construction sites that today's dump trucks cannot match

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Slideshow: View the "super tipper"

For more than a century "tipper" trucks—so called for their ability to lift their cargo beds at an angle that allows their contents to empty without manual intervention—have helped construction crews haul heavy building materials, including tons of asphalt and gravel at a time. The typical model of tipper seen on construction sites worldwide is the dump truck, which uses a hydraulic lift to raise one end of its cargo bed high into the air while its contents slide out of the back or to the side. Munich-based truck maker F.X. Meiller GmbH & Co KG has seen the future of construction hauling, and it is a sleek all-wheel drive tipper capable of dumping on all four directions.

Chinese transportation designer Haishan Deng created a series of concept drawings depicting what Meiller's new "super tipper" truck in action that won him a 2007 red dot award for product design from Germany's Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, an institution formed in 1955 to promote industrial design aesthetics. Inspired by the movement of quadruped animals, Deng designed the super tipper with independent suspension arms that absorb uneven terrain better than conventional dump trucks.

No word yet on when Meiller plans to build these tippers or how much they will cost, but Deng says the truck's six engines and battery system will be the priciest parts. A scaled-down prototype is scheduled to be on display May 17-20 in New York at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

Slideshow: View the "super tipper"

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