Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 466 i Deals On Wheels Australia

Booming demand for new and used trucks, trailers and parts and accessories saw enquiries on Australia’s leading digital classifieds network reach an all-time high in March, new data reveals. More than 23,000+ stock items are listed for sale across the network comprising TradeTrucks.com.au, Fullyloaded.com.au, OwnerDriver.com.au and BusNews.com.au – and syndicated across TradeEarthmovers.com.au, TradeFarmMachinery.com.au and TradePlantEquipment.com.au. In March, total enquiries were 16 per cent higher than the previous month – and a stellar 60 per cent up on March 2020, reaching the highest level since the sites were launched back in 2013. The increase in buyer interest was helped by strong audience growth – plus renewed investment in search engine and social media marketing, with combined unique browsers (or visitors) across the four transport sites up 13.4 per cent on the…

I must admit that, when I first spotted the Wild’s Livestock twin-steer Kenworth, it blew me away! It went straight to the top of my ‘I’ve got to know the story behind that’ list. I thought it was going to be such a cool restoration story. I was so wrong; you want to know why? In order to be a restoration story, the truck has to have been restored! It turns out that the Wild’s Livestock truck has never stopped; it has not had time for a restoration, it is just a hard-working iconic truck. The truck did get a little down time when the motor was first replaced with a couple of million kilometres on it. Since then, the big girl has racked up another million-plus kilometres. All up,…

To be blunt, it was a surprise when word starting filtering through late last year that Daimler Trucks Australia was extensively testing a 500-plus 13 litre engine in Fuso’s flagship Shogun model. After all, Japanese makers have over many years appeared to have an historic and almost ritualistic indifference to engines of such size and output in their heavy-duty contenders. Whether that apparent indifference has been driven by European masters in the case of Fuso (Daimler) and UD (Volvo), or by a dearth of domestic demand in the case of Hino and Isuzu, is contestable. Whatever, the lack of an advanced, efficient and potently powered engine in Australia’s burgeoning 13-litre class has kept the Japanese contingent largely caponised as true heavy-duty contenders. Take market leader Isuzu, for example. Sure, it…

The Queensland government has rolled out some big guns in support of one of its biggest and most sustained industry events – the 2021 Australian Heavy Vehicle Industry Week (AHVIW) and the events under its umbrella. Two ministers have put the state government’s weight behind the initiative is facilitated by industry body Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia (HVIA), owners and organisers of the Brisbane Truck Show, and now the accompanying South Bank Truck Festival. The heavy-duty showing is a tribute to the importance officially attached to it and HVIA chief executive Todd Hacking states that the Queensland government’s support enabled the expansion of the iconic industry event into South Bank Parklands and across the city. “We are extremely grateful to the Queensland government and the City of Brisbane for coming on…

Trucks, buses, light commercials and compressors were the product types to experience the biggest increases in buyer enquiries on Australia’s leading transport classifieds network in the first quarter of 2021, new data reveals. More than 23,000+ stock items – from buses to winches – are listed for sale across the network comprising TradeTrucks.com.au, Fullyloaded.com.au, OwnerDriver.com.au and BusNews.com.au – and syndicated across TradeEarthmovers.com.au, TradeFarmMachinery.com.au and TradePlantEquipment.com.au. In March compressors registered the most growth in buyer interest, with enquiries up 83.3 per cent (and searches +50.5 per cent) compared to the corresponding quarter of 2020; followed by buses (enquiries +49.1 per cent; searches +22.9 per cent), trucks (enquiries +40.6 per cent; searches +30.1 per cent), and light commercials (enquiries +30 per cent; searches +70.1 per cent). Rounding out the top spots were…

This beautifully restored 1984 Mack Super Liner is a collectors dream and with an astonishingly low 151,000 kilometres on the clock, you won’t find another like it. Arguably one of the biggest perks of an old Super Liner is the snarly E9 V8, one of the best-sounding truck motors of all time. This Super Liner features a 40,000k-mold 525hp (392kW) E9 mated to a 12-speed gearbox, with stainless stacks to get that iconic Mack V8 singing. According to the current owner, this Super Liner has had an interesting life and was originally ordered by a well-known mining company to pull its own designated 100-tonne float. The owner claims to have every service record from 1996 to 2010 when it was decommissioned, along with the original build sheet. In 2013 this…

Welcome back folks. It is so good to finally be able to write up a truck show review. It has been so long that the sunscreen lotion in my car had given up on itself and just formed an unusable lump. So, just like the good-old days of 2019, I ended up looking like the warning post for the Slip, Slop, Slap ads. I also ended up with hours’ worth of photos to process, over 13,000 steps for the day and wearing a smile so big it hurt my ears. Welcome back to the truck show scene. Yup, it was awesome to be able to attend the first major truck show in Queensland for 2021: The Kilcoy Konvoy & Rodeo. I never realised how much I’d missed them to be…

Such has been the coverage and promotion of the latest Freightliner and Mercedes-Benz models over the past few years, you could be forgiven for thinking Fuso is something of a poor cousin in the Daimler Trucks world. But not so, and certainly not in Australia. Fuso, in fact, sells many times more trucks in our part of the world than either of its high profile partners. Admittedly, the Japanese brand contests all three market segments – light, medium and heavy-duty – whereas Freightliner and Mercedes-Benz trucks are almost entirely dedicated to the heavy-duty class. Even so, Fuso figures in 2020 leave no doubt of its critical importance to Daimler’s Down Under department, delivering 3,529 units for the year. Mercedes-Benz, on the other hand, continued its steady rise with a respectable…

It had to be done and delivered in a timeframe measured in days Looking for the right truck to fit your needs is tough enough but for the O’Brien family, their search was made all the more difficult by the tyranny of distance. Based in Normanton, Queensland, near the Gulf of Carpentaria, the O’Brien’s remit was simple enough: find a truck tough enough to pull a set of side-tippers and make it look schmick to promote the business. Oh, and it had to be done and delivered in a timeframe measured in days, not weeks or months. Simple, right? Enter Jon Kelly, known for his hit TV show MegaTruckers, who is no stranger to turning out a top-looking truck on short notice. But when Brenda called him up on an…

All doubts that commercial vehicle sales are in boom territory again can be put to rest, with the March total topping the last comparable peak and the first quarter being the second best in five years. March comes in at 3,558, above March 2018’s then all-time high of 3,447, while the quarter hits 8,325, just below 2018’s 8,675, according to Truck Industry Council (TIC) T-Mark statistics. This marks a sizzling return to form after total figures dropped successively over the past two years. Across the sizes, Isuzu is in new territory, with 820 units for the month and 2,034 for the quarter, just above 2018’s 817 and 2,006 and significantly higher than last year’s 640/1,714. The market leader has seen its monthly totals rise strongly, with January at 500 and…

There are a couple of really good reasons why I don’t get out to do many oversize shoots these days. Number one, because photographing them requires a special sort of skill set. Moving objects, at night, in poorly lit areas, yeah it’s tough. When you do jag some good shots it’s worth it, but there’s always a lot of shots just not sharp enough, or a little too dark. It is a real challenge. That’s not the main reason though. The main reason is that you have to be up really, really early! Or sometimes really, really late. However, when you find out a classic fighter jet is going to be doing a low-level pass through the streets of Sydney, well you just can’t pass that up. Boy am I…

Daimler Trucks Australia chief Daniel Whitehead is an affable, agreeable bloke. Most of the time. However, there are other times when, with his competitive instincts suitably stoked or umbrage taken at something or someone considered less than adequate, an abrupt and somewhat stern countenance can quickly surface. Admittedly, those latter times are rare – at least in the public gaze – but such a transformation was briefly, and perhaps justifiably, evident at the recent media launch of Fuso’s electric eCanter at Daimler’s Mulgrave (Vic) headquarters. “The eCanter,” he said earnestly at the start of the presentation, “is a full production electric truck.” Then, with an instant change of tone and an intent most assuredly planned to hit a carefully targeted mark, it was a dour Whitehead who gruffly added: “Ours…

Deals on Wheels: Let’s rewind nearly 10 years. You had your own TV show, a fleet of flash trucks in your business Heavy Haulage Australia (HHA), and from the outside it looked like it was good to be Jon Kelly. What happened? Jon Kelly: At the end of the day a lot of people forget that I did sell the business (HHA). Unfortunately, when McAleese bought in they didn’t have enough firepower to get through the downturn in the economy and it took out a lot of players in heavy haulage. We needed additional equipment and they had surplus capacity to assist us so it was good fit in theory but I don’t think anyone really saw the downturn in the market coming in 2014-15. We were the biggest privately-owned…