Full of the Pipe gets the royal treatment!

05/07/2024

Europe’s leading truck brand Kings of the Road is sponsoring Full of the Pipe again this summer and founder / director Kris Reid points out that it’s the hard-working and dedicated truckers keeping the wheels turning week in and week out who are the real kings and queens of the road referenced in his popular business’ name.

Kings of the Road has become a total phenomenon since its inception in 2021, with Fermanagh man Kris Reid quickly building up a brand and business that has taken the industry by storm. With a solid background as a truck driver, Kris has leveraged his expertise and passion for trucking and trucks to establish a thriving business that sets new standards in the industry.

Kris is a loyal supporter of Full of the Pipe and Kings of the Road will have a strong presence at Mondello Park once more over the weekend of July 13th and 14th. “I’ve been attending the show for years and am now going into my third year at Full of the Pipe as a company,” he notes. “For me personally, Full of the Pipe is the biggest show of the year and the one we look forward to most. I travel to shows all over including Lincoln and Peterborough but Full of the Pipe is the home show and the biggest.

“From a company point of view, we are delighted to support it and promote it and it also provides us with a great opportunity to show people what we can do and what we are all about, as well as meeting fellow drivers and people who are enthusiastic about trucks.”

Kris was thrilled when it was announced last September that there would be a FOTP show arranged for Mondello Park at short notice for the last weekend of October 2023. “Mondello last year showed people that Full of the Pipe was back and open for business again,” he enthuses. “It went very well. The facilities there are excellent. Mondello Park is a great venue with all hard standing and you couldn’t get better. It’s the best truck show about and it’s great to see it at such a fantastic venue.”

The Kings of the Road online store sells a vast range of premium quality merchandise, clothing, footwear, music, truck care products and accessories. Interest in their exclusively truck-themed products has soared since the business was established and this is driven in part by the huge social media following built up, comprising over one million followers across all the platforms.

Kris’ Truck Mania digital content Facebook page has 600,000 followers while the Kings of the Road Ireland and Kings of the Road Facebook pages boasted 174,000 and 130,000 followers respectively at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Kings of the Road has amassed over 30,000 Instagram followers, while the two TikTok channels have received over three million likes and more than 200,000 followers

This is vastly more traffic that official pages for renowned manufacturers and Kings of the Road has recently agreed a deal to become an official content creator for none other than Scania. “We may have more followers but when somebody like Scania comes calling then you are going to take note,” says Kris. “We’ll be meeting drivers and creating content and uploading it – a new part of the business that I’m really looking forward to.”

While the Irish market remains the biggest one for Kings of the Road, their merchandise is being sold all over the world, from the United States to France and from Germany to Australia. All the products are of the highest quality, including many carrying the Kings of the Road brand itself. In boots, for example, a selection of renowned brands is stocked including Blundstone, RM Williams and Joseph Cheaney.

“As a company, we are very new and it’s amazing how the business keeps growing,” says Kris. A fine selection from the store will be available to buy from the official Kings of the Road mobile trailer at Full of the Pipe 2024. “We started at Full of the Pipe with an old slide-out trailer but last year purchased a 45-foot exhibition trailer which opens out into a fully kitted-out shop,” Kris continues.

“We’ll be stocking up as well as we can ahead of Full of the Pipe and bringing as much merch as possible. For obvious reasons we won’t be able to carry everything but we always bring the core range of products to the shows, including clothing for men, ladies and children. Our stuff is very popular with ladies – they have a big interest in these styles and around 40 per cent of what we sell on the website is bought by girls.”

Whether talking to Kris in person, viewing the wonderful content he creates or contemplating the incredible success generated by Kings of the Road in a remarkably short space of time – not to mention the popularity and inherent value of the brand he has built – the one thing that shines through is his genuine passion for and appreciation of trucks and haulage.

There’s an old adage that one should steer clear of mixing business with pleasure but the caveat is that it will definitely work if the zest and passion levels are high enough. When a person loves what they do then they tend to do it well.

“I’ve always had that passion for lorries and it’s something that’ll never leave me,” Kris confirms. “You can just see that it’s in some people’s blood. They’ll work in the industry all week and then head off on a ferry or up the road for a show at the weekend because trucks are their passion.

“As a driver, on a personal level, I saw that there was a lot of clothing available for the agri side of things but there was nothing there really for truck drivers, unless they wanted to wear the agri clothing. I decided to put out the Kings of the Road range and to launch the website. The social media presence helped push it but we also had a good product.

“We’re retailing quality clothing for truck drivers and it works as there’s a good community and network there. We get involved in a lot of charity events and shows, where we turn up to support them and give them some much-needed backing – shows aren’t all about trying to sell your products.

“Haulage in Ireland is like a big family and we are all part of a great community,” the man behind Kings of the Road concludes. “For me, the real king of the road is the driver and not the brand. It’s the dedicated truck drivers who are the kings and queens of the road. They are the ones who keep the whole thing going and those drivers are a big part of what we are all about.”

Full of the Pipe Truckshow Ireland returns to Mondello Park over the weekend of July 13th and 14th.