BTR Excavations sticks with Isuzu-Allison combo

When you're on a good thing, stick to it!

That's an apt motto for BTR Excavations, which has just added six new Isuzu F Series trucks equipped with Allison 3000 Series and 4000 Series transmissions to its fleet of 50 hardworking vehicles – 90% of which are an Isuzu-Allison combination.

Barry Flitter, owner of the South Australian business – which marks 35 years of operation in 2026 – said this preferred pairing is no accident and credits zero unplanned transmission downtime as a contributor to his business’ ongoing success.

The company has been providing water and wastewater contracting services exclusively to the South Australian Water Corporation since 1992.

BTR’s long-term dealer partner is the Northeast Auto Group, which has been run by Tony Emanuele since the passing of his father in 2013. Barry credits its late founder, Charlie Emanuele, for helping him develop his robust fleet.

“It was Charlie who first got me into a truck with an Allison back in 1997," Barry recalled.

"He said, ‘have a go at this’ and we’ve never looked back. When we had manuals, we’d always be doing the clutches in. Nowadays most fleets are automatic, but we bypass the clutch issue altogether with the fully automatic.

“We look at the value of the vehicle over time and how it contributes to keep our business running. That’s the real money saver. I learned a lot from Charlie, so I trusted him and continue to trust his son and, as a result, we’ve never had any unplanned downtime with a transmission in the last 30 years.”

BTR has grown from three to 140 staff in those three decades, and the fleet is supported by Allison’s authorised distributor partner, Heavy Automatics.

“We’re laying sewer and water mains or adding sewer connections and new water services and we’re flat out," Barry said.

"Every one of our work groups are supported by these vehicles. Aside from the reliability – which is key for us in delivering a civic contract – they’ve got everything you want power wise."

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