Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 413 i Deals On Wheels Australia

The chassis rails were like Swiss cheese There was a time when 200hp was something to brag about in a truck. It was also a time when sleeper cabs were a luxury in long-haul trucking, let alone a prime mover that only had one gear stick. As the old saying went: “If it’s got headlights, you don’t need a bunk.” The International DCO isn’t exactly an iconic model. It doesn’t feature highly in the soot-stained annals of Aussie highway myth and folklore. For a start, the fully imported cab-over was only on the market for a couple of short years before the arrival of the more popular cab-over Transtar that replaced it. Yet for a brief time it was regarded as a big highway banger, an All-American lightweight that packed…

Prior to a couple of laps around Brisbane’s Mt Cotton driver training centre a few months back at the launch of the 560hp (418kW) D38 engine, it had been a long time since I’d driven an MAN truck of any sort for any length of time. It was, I think, back in the days when MAN’s Australian operation was still under the direct control of head office in Munich, and that certainly wasn’t yesterday. Anyway, it’s not that I’ve declined any offers to steer a MAN in the interim. Quite simply, the opportunities just haven’t eventuated and, given the German maker’s historically modest and sometimes indifferent approach to the Australian trucking scene, there never seemed much point in troubling the brand’s minders. Besides, there was never any shortage of other…

The German truck maker may be a minor player on the Australian market, but MAN’s contribution to the aspirations of the vast Volkswagen Group is anything but minor. According to a recent report from Europe, Volkswagen Truck & Bus division comprising MAN, Scania and Volkswagen’s South American operation sold about 184,000 trucks and buses in 2016, with MAN leading the charge. All up, MAN Truck & Bus sold 83,200 vehicles in 2016, up 5 per cent on the previous year’s figures. Scania wasn’t too far behind, selling 81,350 trucks and buses, an increase of 6 per cent over 2015 results. According to Volkswagen Truck & Bus chief and former Mercedes-Benz executive Andreas Renschler, the 2016 result was a satisfying result given the year’s turbulent conditions with “the crisis in Brazil,…

Rural Haulage Australia, operated by Glen and Susie Clyne, is a fairly modest-sized outfit. With its head office based in Naracoorte amid South Australia’s Limestone Coast region, the company has three trucks in its fleet – all Kenworths. It’s also where you’ll find Mick Thompson, the regular driver for the company’s 2012 Kenworth K200. A K104 and a K104b complete the trio of trucks. However, Mick reckons he’s got the best deal with the K200 being the newest in the fleet. “While the boss does drive, I’ve got the K200 and love it,” he says. Rural Haulage Australia started off with one truck in 2006. Its regular freight is hay, wool and general. However, it’s all farm related and, when Deals On Wheels caught up with Mick, he had just…

The Tooradin Tractor Pull and Truck Show usually boasts being the first trucking event of the calendar year. However, in 2017 it had to share that title with the Koroit Truck Show in western Victoria, which was held on the same day. This year’s Tooradin Tractor Pull and Truck Show was held on Saturday, January 21, at its usual venue of the Rutter Reserve in Tooradin. The event has been running since 1998 and has grown markedly since then, helped by its fairly close proximity to Melbourne. As usual, there were plenty of standout trucks on show, but none better than Victorian Freight Specialists’ black Mercedes-Benz 2663. Chris Deeley brought the Benz to Tooradin, along with his daughter Kat, a keen photographer was right in her element with the fine…