Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 434 i Deals On Wheels Australia

It’s 1am and as quiet as a Marcel Marceau concert. For an express runner, it’s about half time. For an Uber driver? Not so good. On this particular day, however, I had to drag my sorry butt out of bed in order to go and grab some photos of the well-oiled Clein Group rigs putting in the hard yards. I’ve always had a lot of admiration for those in the heavy-haulage sector of our industry. It’s one of those specialties where your patience, your attention to detail and your skill levels are stepped up a notch. Considering my patience runs out while waiting on two-minute noodles, it’s not surprising I’ve never dipped my fingers into that pie. I do like watching the professionals at work though, and in order to…

Baranduda transport company, Dawson’s Haulage, led a convoy of 200 trucks through Wodonga and Albury for the revived Albury Convoy for Kids on September 30. The honour of leading the convoy was decided at an auction at the starting line, and Dawson’s Haulage paid $6,000 for the privilege. Driver Justin Twyford was proud to be in the driver’s seat of the company’s 2018 Kenworth T900. Owner Graeme Dawson says the main motivation for the generous bid was “just to donate some money to the kids”. Dawson’s Haulage also supports the event by promoting it on a trailer throughout the year. The T900 pulled the trailer during the convoy. Graeme challenges other transport companies to raise funds to ensure a lively lead-truck auction at next year’s convoy. “It’s all for a…

Equally keen for a first stint behind the wheel of Cascadia at Anglesea was Freightliner Australia’s newly appointed sales and operations executive, Rob Griffin. A no-nonsense, straight-talking individual, Rob spent the previous decade or so in Paccar’s ranks, including high-profile stints as Kenworth national sales manager and most recently, general manager of DAF. It was his resignation from Paccar while in the DAF role, just a few weeks before the first locally assembled DAF rolled off the same Bayswater (Vic) production line as Kenworth, which caught many industry insiders by surprise. With some wondering whether his departure was caused by problems at Paccar or poached by an offer too good to refuse from Freightliner, a typically succinct Rob says simply, “Neither.” In a good-natured explanation during a quick catchup at…

Construction giant Hanson has taken the keys to its 1,000th Mack truck, marking a true-blue partnership spanning 34 years. The symbolic Mack Trident tipper was presented to Hanson in the swish new Volvo Group Australia (VGA) showroom in Brisbane on September 17, sporting millennial livery and personalised ‘HANSON’ plates. Hanson’s general manager of logistics Scott Tipping took the keys to the truck, celebrating a long-standing relationship and a shared future safety focus between the two companies. “Hanson purchased its first Mack in 1984 and we’ve had a history ever since,” Tipping says. “I think it’s a really symbolic thing we’ve been doing business with Mack for so long.” Without tippers and tankers our business grinds to a halt. Mack Trucks vice president Dean Bestwick reiterated just how proud the manufacturer…

The Brisbane Truck Show is renowned as the place to be for the first look at the latest offerings from Australia’s wide array of truck and trailer manufacturers and distributors. Once those trucks are on the road and clocking up the kilometres, who is going to look after them to make sure they’re kept in tip-top shape? Australia’s best up-and-coming service technicians will put it all on the line in one of the most entertaining highlights of the Brisbane Truck Show. Nominations are now open for the 2019 HVIA National Apprentice Challenge, to be staged live at the biennial event from May 16 to 19. HVIA’s Paul Woodland says that heavy vehicle mechanical apprentices at any stage of their study from across Australia have the opportunity to compete in the…

In March 1606 a small ship called the Duyfken, owned by the Dutch East India Company, was sent south of New Guinea to explore the uncharted waters. What Captain Willem Jansz found there was a new territory – the west coast of Australia. More than 200 years later another Dutchman wanted a better life for his family that post-war Holland was struggling to provide. So Wilhelumus and Henrietta Van Der Weerden packed up their family and headed for sunny Australia with seven children. The voyage took six weeks, leaving Holland in October 1950 and arriving that November. The ship they sailed out on was half freight and half passengers, including 20 other families sailing with the Van Der Weerdens. The family arrived at Station Pier at about 7pm and after…

MACK ROAD STABILITY ADVANTAGE (RSA) This full stability system helps drivers mitigate rollovers and loss-of-control situations on wet and dry roads. The system helps to mitigate vehicle jack-knifes, slides, skids and loss-of-control through advanced monitoring of a variety of vehicle parameters and automatic or selective application of vehicle brakes. BENDIX BLIND SPOTTER Reduces the drivers’ blind spot and increases the field of view by up to 120 degrees. This assists with safer lane changes, drifting in lanes and reduces sideswipe accidents. ALERT PRIORITISATION Provides the most critical alert first (typically the impact alert) leading into a collision mitigation braking event, helping minimise driver distraction from multiple alerts occurring simultaneously. LANE DEPARTURE WARNING The system alerts drivers to unintended lane changes. FOLLOWING DISTANCE ALERT Three levels of audible and visual alerts…

Timing, they say, is everything, and if that’s the case, the recent announcement that Isuzu Motors Limited and Cummins Inc. are putting their heads together on product sharing possibilities probably could not have come at a more opportune time for both brands. Especially for our part of the world. Without putting too fine a point on it, Cummins has something Isuzu Australia could put to very good use, and Isuzu has something Cummins South Pacific would very much like. For Isuzu, that ‘something’ may well be the incredibly perky, technically advanced and exceptionally lightweight X12 engine. For Cummins, the ‘something’ is a heavy-duty truck chassis the X12 can call ‘home’, most notably a home under Japan’s comprehensively refashioned Giga flagship. Or maybe Cummins and Isuzu have something a bit bigger…