Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 439 i Deals On Wheels Australia

Over the years Mack has garnered much praise for its Granite range with customers describing it as a versatile, tough and reliable truck that offers in-close manoeuvrability and long-haul comfort. Designed and built in Australia for Australian conditions, Mack says the Granite’s light-weight chassis can carry heavy loads while staying nimble. Its powerful and fuel-efficient Mack MP8 engine makes Granite an “unflinching truck built with true grit”. A 2014 version of this classic model is up for sale through Volvo Commercial Vehicles Sydney. The distribution model is perfectly suited to the open highway, or local and interstate work. This Mack Granite is a light-weight day cab prime mover with 24,000kg GVM and long enough for a tipper body with GCM of 50,000kg. It is fitted with a Mack turbo diesel…

Rising energy costs are increasingly playing into the purchasing decisions of Australian businesses, with new, energy-efficient equipment providing opportunities for business to reduce their operating expenses. Businesses are often looking for ways to streamline their operating costs. And in recent years, rises in the costs of running equipment, transporting people and goods, and keeping the lights on, have put energy and fuel prices increasingly in the spotlight. Between 2015 and 2017, wholesale electricity prices rose 130 per cent, resulting in a doubling of the price paid for electricity traded in the National Electricity Market (NEM), according to a 2018 Grattan Institute report, Mostly Working: Australia’s Wholesale Electricity Market, authored by Tony Wood and David Blowers. And while government intervention has seen gas prices ease over the past year, high overseas…

Enduring lovers of White Motor Company trucks look back on the early 1980s as the sad end of an era. Production of White trucks was phased out soon after Volvo acquired the struggling American company in 1981. Since then, trucks made in Australia and internationally by White and associated brands have become highly collectable. And about 63 of these trucks gathered at Kyabram, Victoria, on March 16 and 17 for the 2019 Australian White Truck Muster. This is the eighth biennial White Truck Muster organised by Ray and Michelle Grima with assistance from a band of supporters. Ray is one of Australia’s most devoted White truck fanatics. He says Super Powers and 3000s were popular with restorers when he first began collecting Whites. “What I’ve noticed is that people are…

Sitting down with Michael and Megan Mahon from MJ Mahon Transport in Brisbane and looking at their setup I automatically assumed that they both had grown up in transport families. The success of MJ Mahon Transport and the approach the company takes to maximising its efficiency and productivity gives the impression of generations of hard-earnt experience. For the second time this year I was very wrong (the other time involved Valentine’s Day’s ‘No Gift policy’; boy did I get that seriously wrong). Back on point, neither Michael nor his wife Megan have trucking in their blood. However, what they do have is a head for business and a tenacity that has seen them succeed in a very competitive marketplace. Now, 21 years after Michael hit the road, MJ Mahon Transport…

It’s been almost eight years since Australian country music artist Travis Sinclair released his third album, Diesel Boy, and he’s often asked why he hasn’t quit trucking to spend more time on stage and in the recording studio. “People say, ‘Get out of the trucks and go singing. It’d be a lot easier,’” Travis says. But he’s spent enough time on stage to know it’s just as hard as being behind the wheel: “When you’re on tour, some nights you might only get four hours’ sleep.” Last year Travis took six weeks’ leave from truck driving to tour with Carter & Carter, Felicity Urquhart, Anthony Taylor and Jetty Road. The Taste of Tamworth Tour included venues in Victoria and southern New South Wales. “The bit we all live for, I…

In Fuso parlance it’s known as the ‘Black Panther’ project. A comprehensive corporate initiative based in Japan, designed to put more class, more comfort, more corporate componentry and, significantly, more safety into Fuso’s heavy-duty arsenal. But seriously, hauling down the Hume from Albury to Melbourne on a bright and balmy day, this particular ‘panther’ looked more like a speckled rooster on ’roids. Seriously, if you were on the road that day and missed it, you definitely need a Labrador. Whatever, if the aim of the marketing minds behind the mottled montage was to attract attention and announce that this was no ordinary Fuso on the fly, then they certainly succeeded. It was, indeed, a Fuso with a difference and as senior manager of product management and engineering Romesh Rodrigo was…