A group of Volvo enthusiasts, the Australian Volvo Truck Heritage Group, have got together to preserve the history of the Swedish brand, Volvo, in Australia. The group of Volvo nuts have got together with some Volvo Group Australia employees to create, what they are calling, ‘a web based interest group’. The aim is to preserve and share the colourful and interesting history of the Volvo brand and its manufacture here in Australia.

Under construction, at the moment, but already a substantial source of interesting information, is the group’s website at http://www.hunteroldtrucks.com/HunterAVTHG.shtml. Filled with pdfs of specifications and setting out the history of Volvo here in Australia, the site looks like a goldmine for the many truck history enthusiasts around Australia. The information posted is just a small sample of the historical material the Australian Volvo Truck Heritage Group have amassed, but they still want more and are looking for anything to make their archive as a full a record as possible. Contact them here at avthg@hunteroldtrucks.com

These are lofty ideals but how many of those 25,000 trucks built in the Gothenburg plant each year will get recycled at the end of the day. Unfortunately, the proportion is likely to be pretty low. Most of the trucks will not be sold into environmentally responsible places like Scandinavia and Germany, but all around the world where the environment is not yet the major priority, survival is.

Don’t despair though, because there is an upside. Recycling is very good PR. It provides Volvo with the opportunity to have institutions like National Geographic reinforce the brand’s strong association with all things safe and responsible. Marketing Gold!

Safety systems have a great deal of functionality and, if properly used, will definitely deliver a better safety outcome. What we don’t know is how this kind of equipment plays out in the real world with drivers in real life dangerous situations. This is where this project by Volvo is such a good idea. They have wired a number of trucks with a sophisticated array of monitoring gear to assess exactly what happens in the lead up to an accident, as shown in this video.

Unfortunately, the exercise will probably demonstrate the relative ineffectiveness of very expensive systems if the driver does not do the right thing. Good drivers will avoid accidents with or without thousands of dollars worth of electronic back-up. The other of side of the coin is the dangerous driver, and there plenty of them out there. No amount of safety control systems will stop a reckless driver who has little understanding of their vehicle and bad judgement of traffic conditions around them. They will still be able to maim or kill themselves or those on the highway in their vicinity.

I will be surprised if Volvo publish any results unless the research categorically proves truck buyers need to spend countless dollars extra on electronic safety equipment. The best outcome would probably be if the results show truck makers how to improve the interface between the monitoring equipment and the driver to better help the good drivers do their job well and may save the lives of some of the worse drivers.

Firstly, Kenworth’s, preferred, two engine strategy may be under threat. The Paccar company are very conservative, financially, and as a result of the recession, have delayed the commencement of production of the Paccar MX engine in the US for a year. In Australia, this engine was to become the alternative engine choice to Cummins after the disappearance of the Caterpillar engine this year. In an effort to reduce costs, Paccar will not produce any engines until they can afford the capital outlay.

This may not cause many problems for Kenworth dealerships but truck buyers who are not fans of the big red engine may look to other North American brands who can offer an alternative in the form of the Detroit Diesel.

Confusion reigns at the headquarters of the Navistar Corporation, makers of International Trucks, as they engage in a legal battle and a PR war of words with the rest of the truck manufacturing industry in North America. They are the only engine maker to offer a non-SCR heavy-duty diesel engine to meet the new US EPA 2010 exhaust emission regulations coming up next year. To a lot of observers in the US this plan lacks credibility and doubt has been cast over the practicality of reaching the extremely strict emissions limits just with high pressure fuel injection and a high percentage of EGR.

Navistar have embarked upon a legal battle to prove the SCR technology is environmentally dangerous and should not be endorsed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. They have pitted themselves against all of the other truck manufacturers in an effort to justify their decision to rely on an EGR solution. This tactic smacks of desperation and if it fails, as it is predicted to do, International Trucks could find themselves in some difficulty. Again, this could affect the viability of the International operation run here in Australia by Iveco.

Further uncertainty is being created by the mixed messages people are receiving from inside and outside of the Caterpillar organisation. In the US, the new Caterpillar branded trucks to be built in a joint venture with Navistar are being played down without a date being set for their release. On the other hand, here in Australia, reports from within Caterpillar suggest the new trucks are not very far away. These claims are being questioned by their competition who have seen little evidence of real trucks appearing in the metal any time soon.

Meanwhile over in Europe, all of the truck manufacturers seem to be having an equally hard time with massive falls in sales over most of their major markets. Although there have been no major casualties of the recession, so far, the troubled economic times have put pressure on some of the larger companies. Scania appear quite safe under the new Volkswagen ownership whereas MAN, also owned by VW, are struggling financially and fighting a corruption court case in the German courts.

Elsewhere in Germany, Daimler have sold a large share of their company to a Middle Eastern investor, suggesting there long-term future will see the ownership pass out of Europe, increasing uncertainty. The Volvo group are also seen to be struggling financially and it has been suggested they may drop the Renault truck brand in the near future, concentrating their efforts on the core Volvo brand in Europe.

As is always the case for buyers here in Australia, we will just have observe from afar. Our preferences and our choices are not important enough on a global scale to affect decisions. It is simply a matter of waiting and seeing what plays out elsewhere in the world and working with what we’ve got as a result.

Volvo are hoping technology developed by their Volvo Aero aircraft componenets division can help them recuce the cab weight on their trucks by 20%. This is a big call made by  Carl Fredrik Hartung, Project Manager at Volvo Technology in the following video. Reduce weight and you improve fuel efficiency and therefore carbon emissions. Reduce weight too much and you run the risk of compromising safety.

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“We are creating the super-light vehicle in a computer program that simulates how hundreds of thousands of small construction alterations can reduce the vehicle’s total weight without affecting other key characteristics in the vehicle, such as crashworthiness or the ability to bear loads,” says Hartung

“It is important to conduct thorough computer simulations and standardize the manufacturing process so that it will be profitable to manufacture lighter vehicles for commercial use. We have come a long way but a great deal of work remains before the first super-light vehicles hit the road”

This ad from 1979 when the Volvo Globetrotter first came out sounds like a blaxploitation movie from the seventies. The backing music recalls the score to the movie Shaft, written by Isaac Hayes and is completely incongruous in an ad for a Swedish truck. But hey, it was the seventies, bad taste was all the go!

The cab interior looks so dated and the features look pretty ordinary looking back 30 years. However, it’s important to remember this truck was breaking new ground. Nobody in Europe had offered this kind of space, comfort and room before and it wasn’t long before every truck manufacturer had jumped onto the band wagon.

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I can remember the first time I saw one of these on the road and a proud new owner invited me into his cab to look around. I just couldn’t believe the amount of room and the luxury fitments (I was driving an ageing Leyland at the time). How times have changed and, luckily, music like this is just a dim and distant memory.

A Norwegian truck operator delivering oil field equipment is the first to take delivery of the new 700 hp FH model from Volvo. The truck gives Volvo major bragging rigths and this video commentary includes the words, ‘the world’s most powerful truck’ as many times as it can in two minutes.

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Do we really need 700 hp? No, but it looks great on the door and winds up your mates on the road. Do we need more torque? Yes, but is there a gearbox capable of coping with 3500 Nm?

Truck operator Ray Cauchi and CMV Truck Sales based in Laverton North in Victoria worked with Volvo Trucks and Gorski Trailers to put together a combination capable of making it through the rigourous and expensive process of getting a vehicle passed as PBS compliant.

By lengthening the combination to 19.6 metres it was possible to meet the bridge formula requirements with the set back front axle in the Volvo’s design. The year-long approval process and engineering costs were funded by CMV in conjunction with Volvo and Gorski. The resulting payload advantage is 1.8 tonnes for general access and 5.5 tonnes on B-double (Level 2) routes.

This is the kind of thing the pioneers of PBS were hoping for, all those years ago. It has been a long hard struggle to get the State governments and local authorities to understand the idea of PBS and make practical changes to make it happen.

These new long tipper and dogs should not be subject to the ‘Nimby’ syndrome as they will not be noticeably longer to any but the experienced eye. They have proven their swept path capability on corners is better than a semi, so they will perform better than trucks already on the road.

As the evaluation work has already been done by ARRB, this means it is possible for any truck operator to build to the same specification and get approval for the same weight allowance anywhere in Australia. Prepare to see a preponderance of ‘long dogs’ appearing on our roads, as soon as the construction sector starts to pick up.

When Volvo announced the introduction of a new 700 hp FH 16 it was done with a lot of pizazz and the campaign to market with new truck talked a lot about the strongest truck in the world. The question must be, is it about having a more powerful truck or is it just about having the number 700 on the badge?

Here in Australia, Volvo have shown us, for the first time, what the new 700 hp FH 16 is going to look like on their display stand at the Brisbane Truck Show. Although simply a static display, showing the latest look of the cab inside and out, the display did catch the eye because of the very large 700 painted on it.

In actual fact, the difference between this and the former high water mark for Volvo, at 660 hp and 3100 N metres of torque, is relatively small as the new model creates just 50 Nm more torque. When the prime mover is pulling an extremely heavy load or a few trailers it is not the horse power the driver feels in the seat of their pants it is the torque and I would defy anyone to pick a 50 Nm difference on an unfamiliar truck.

Yes, 700 hp is nice to have, it may get the job done slightly quicker and may use marginally less fuel. What is nice is to be driving the most powerful truck on the road. It is like anything, it’s great to be one up on your mates. The driver can talk the talk, and now with 700 hp, they can walk the walk, and it is a great feeling.

My suspicion is the decision to go from 660 hp up to 700 hp in the Volvo range was not a decision emanating from the engineering department but, more likely, to have come from and be driven by the global marketing department, who understand these things.

Although the company is describing this as a major development for their engine and for their range, it is difficult to believe the extra power will make much difference to the driver or to the load on the road.

It could be that the most important thing is the fact there is a 700 painted in big numbers on the door and the driver or the truck’s owner can boast they have the most powerful truck in the world on the road. Quite often it is simply a status thing with little discernible productivity improvement from a higher power figure.

The figure we should be looking at instead is the torque rating. Torque is what gives an engine it’s oomph and, as such, is actually a more important figure when gauging how well a truck goes. Horse power always gets the spotlight, but it it is in fact a torque which is doing all the work. When we look at the torque on this new 16 L engine from Volvo we see there has been an increase of just 50 Newton metres in the torque rating. In normal highway running with a single trailer or B-double it would be difficult to discern the difference from the driver’s seat or from trip times.

What we will see this year from Volvo is the new look for the FH and FM ranges, a modernising of the style coupled with some specification improvements underneath. We can expect to see these changes later this year, most probably at the Brisbane Truck Show. At first glance these changes don’t look to be that different but I have been lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the new trucks in the metal and can say that the difference is striking and it makes the trucks look, stylistically, much more modern.

Getting back to the new 16 L engine, another number will be of great interest to Australian truck buyers. In the information released so far in Europe about the truck the SCR system is described as being larger than the current model fitted here in Australia. This may, or may not, impinge upon the chassis space available for fuel tanks on this next-generation FH model.

So the number we will be looking for is how many litres of fuel it is possible to fit into the chassis of a standard semi or B-double prime mover for major linehaul highway work. You can be sure the Volvo engineers will be working hard right now on the chassis layout of the new trucks, for release in a couple of years time, to ensure they can shoehorn enough diesel into the truck to satisfy the Australian operators’ needs.