Steve Cunliffe

Former TVH Australasia CEO Steve Cunliffe has joined forces with old friend Adrian Martin to rent forklifts to Australian dealers.

Cunliffe is now Martin's business partner in Fork Source, a Rocklea-based forklift specialist company supplying forklift dealers and equipment rental companies with short-term hire.

The pair bought Clontarf-based Forklift Sales Queensland (FSQ) for more than AUD1 million (USD0.75 million) to support the wholesale rental business. FSQ would provide used forklifts for Fork Source's rental fleet, Martin said.

The two companies, to be run as separate businesses, are expected to provide a combined annual turnover of more than AUD5 million (USD3.77 million).

Cunliffe said the concept of wholesale forklift rentals would offer "speedy service" to forklift dealers.

Martin, who established Fork Source in 1999, said his business was evolving and he could no longer do it alone.
"That's (Fork Source) the dearest thing to my heart and we aim to grow it and make it bigger," he said.

Fork Source's rental fleet has about 300 forklifts from Komatsu, Nissan, Nichiyu, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Crown, Hyster, Yale, Nichiyu and Moffett Mounty.