Ivo Euro3tar101.0440E
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• lveco has tried hard to convince the world that it makes a credible high-spec, long-distance cab, but customers (at least in this country) have never quite been convinced. So we went into it with an open mind and tried to look beyond first impressions.
The EuroStar is a sizeable cab with a multitude of features, but you cannot escape the feeling of flimsiness given off by the plastic fixtures and fittings: they creak and squeak, and just don't inspire confidence. While you wouldn't hesitate to lean on the new MAN's dashboard mouldings, the lveco feels (and sounds) as if it would give way all too easily. The locker doors flap, the catches feel cheap and nasty, and you start to wish that Italian design flair would make way for a little North European solidity.
It's by no means all bad news, however. Some real thought has been put into this interior: there is simply masses of imaginative storage space, including a wardrobe with a zip-up fabric door and fabric pockets on the upper rear wall. There are shelves and cubbyholes everywhere you look, but perhaps the storage has gone a bit too far: the above-screen locker moulding goes the full width of the cab, and Cs all too easy to bang your head on it when standing up on the passenger's side. It also gives the cab a slightly claustro
phobic feeling, despite its overall size.
Getting around the cab was not particularly easy either. The central coolbox-cum-step is handy (if creaky) for getting into the upper bunk, but for the rest of the time it just gets in the way, impeding progress across the cab and making it hard to lay out clothes and the like. Combined with the head-bashing overhead lockers, this made the EuroStar one of the trickiest cabs to get dressed in.
Mind you, the Ivaco is a comfortable place to spend the night. The cab heater responds quickly, and the bunk is big enough and suitably firm (even for CM'S more heavy duty testers). It would have
been nice to have had a remote control for the radio and the night heater, and while there's no shortage of interior lights they don't seem to be terribly bright—or maybe the gloomy interior just absorbed the light. There was some light through the curtains, however; their not-quiteopaque fabric gave a "starlight" effect that was either charming or bloody irritating, depending on your mood.
So we went into the EuroStar with an open mind, but were a little disappointed to find that first impressions seem to last. Size isn't everything, and some sensible design and more confidence-inspiring construction would be welcome. Time for a rethink, please, lveco.