About Lone Star Body Systems
We are a premier truck body system assembler that specializes in manufacturing a variety of premium commercial truck bodies for use in the energy, oilfield, construction, and environmental waste industries. We pride ourselves on our quality of work and our quick turnaround times.
Leading the industrial truck and trailer industry for over 30 years.
From a single bay in Kansas in 1990 to our multi-site manufacturing complex today, Lone Star Body Systems has been innovating and providing the specialty trucks and trailers needed to get the job done. Whether you’re a sole proprietor or a major corporation, Lonestar’s customer service and quality is unmatched. Learn about our story and why our customers stay with us for life.
The Lone Star Body Systems Story
Prior to 2016, we were known in our industry as EMI LLC. While operating in Kansas under EMI LLC, we opened a satellite company in Corsicana, Texas under the company name of EMI LLC TX. Our Texas company underwent a name change of Lone Star Body Systems LLC in July 2015. Management decided to close EMI LLC and move the primary offices to Texas to secure work and build LSBS as a company in February 2016. In January 2019 LSBS secured a new location for all Production needs in Mexia, Texas on an 82-acre site.
In the early 1990s, Terry Bailey was on a business trip to Costa Rica to learn about retrieving used construction equipment to be brought back to the USA for refurbishing. Instead, his Costa Rican guide introduced Terry to a heavy-duty truck dealer who was looking to buy used heavy trucks. Terry returned to Tyler, Texas with the business plan of EMI in mind, and began refurbishing used trucks to ship to Costa Rica and, other central American countries.
In 1994 EMI relocated to Washington, Kan. and was established as a used heavy truck business, responding to the needs of the agriculture business in Kansas/Nebraska. Terry introduced the agriculture community to diesel-powered trucks with Allison automatic transmissions for ease of operations. The business grew and offered retail sales in the central USA and, a retail location in Maryland serving the construction industry. However, a central USA drought that lasted a year and heavy rains covering the East coast led to a decline in demand for construction and agriculture-equipped trucks. As a result, EMI reconfigured itself to build dust control water truck systems installed on new and used heavy trucks for the construction industry. In 2005 EMI constructed and built its first oil field winch bed truck for use in the energy market. Over time, Terry developed what he refers to as “structured innovations and lean manufacturing techniques”, a system that greatly streamlined the manufacturing process. This enabled EMI to quickly reproduce winch bed systems that were consistently accurate, high quality, and reasonably priced. Further improvements to these techniques led to the development of body kits, which could be installed by dealers to retrofit heavy-duty trucks. EMI LLC closed its corporation in late 2015. LSBS was established in July 2015 and set up primary offices in Corsicana, Texas, then later moved to a new location found in Mexia, Texas.
At our new location, Lone Star Body Systems, LLC has 20 buildings that are spread out over an 83-acre facility with 167,000 sq. ft. of space to serve your truck body needs. LSBS is vertically growing and adding equipment on regular basis.
Our State Of The Art Process
All of the products we offer from Frac Movers to Hydro Excavators start their lives on the screens of our engineering team. They custom design every joint, handle, and weld to meet our high standards long before we start the manufacturing process.
Our process continues in our state-of-the-art factory and assembly plant located in Mexia, Texas. Using the latest equipment, our staff of over 40 production workers turns our digital designs into reality.
Our Mexia plant currently has three distinct lines each working on its own type of truck. This lets us assemble the trucks in a much shorter time than typical. On some designs, we can assemble a complete truck in under half the time as compared to our competitors. At the height of production, we can complete five trucks per week this includes the field-tested features and rigorous testing that we are known for.
