East meets West
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WELCOME signs of an improvement in commercial vehicle sales in West Germany set the mood for most manufacturers at the Hanover Fair, organised this year to highlight vehicle exhibits in their supporting role to the manufacturing, construction and service sectors of industry. BILL GODWIN reports
Each year a foreign nation is invited to provide a "guest" feature at Hanover to show industrial and economic activities vis6-vis its German and other trading partners. This year one of the targest-ever contingents brought over 400 manufacturers and organisations from all parts of India to make this "Jewel in the Crown" of the vast interna
tional trade fair.
No expense was spared to demonstrate the wide range of products and equipment from the ninth largest industrial power in the world and vehicle exhibits included trucks and buses from TATA as well as some Ashok-Leyland-based units for such applications as well boring.
In the early seventies, German tyre maker Continental entered into an agreement with the Indian Modi group of companies which has now become market leader in tyre production in that
country.
With an annual output of 2.5m Below: Introduction of a new 16tanner by MAN completes the medium-weight programme first announced at Brussels in 1983. A choice of three power units, of 100, 125 and 151kW, is available. Tractive unit versions are to be added to the range later this year. First_ UK presentation will be at NEC in October. tyres — including certain special purpose types which are exported to Europe and other markets — Modi was one of the big names to participate at the Fair.
Hanover exhibits by the German commercial vehicle industry are complementary to the specialised motor shows — such as Frankfurt or Geneva in showing all vehicles with bodywork for specific needs and applications.
This was particularly marked on the Mercedes-Benz stand where the new 709-1120 medium weight range was represented by a wide range of exhibits including ice cream distribution vans and car recovery units. An exhibit by Titan, of Appenweier, using Mercedes-Benz mechanical units and cab was the prototype of what could be regarded as the ultimate low loader for soft drinks distribution.
It was developed on behalf of the German Coca-Cola company and type-coded CC1617. It has a portal frame to allow a full-size pre-loaded container body to be picked up at the depot within minutes of setting down, a similar module with empties, and to provide ground-level handling of individual consignments at delivery points. The vehicle is rear-engined and has automatic transmission.
MAN, which by February 1984 had increased its German market share of the 16-tonnes plus sector to 26.8 per cent, introduced at Hanover the new 16.192 model to complete the middle-weight programme first announced at Brussels in 1983.
Sales of over 1,000 of the new 361 bhp-engined models since these became available in September 1983 are also indicative of the healthier state of the company's order book. The new 16tonner is to be premiered in the UK in early autuum.
At Hanover the impressive MAN display also included a 14.192-based car carrier, by Lohr, a 22.281 6x2 chassis for mixer or skip loader use and a "Motorhome" based on the MAN-VW 9.136 chassis,
VW, with a total of almost 40 exhibits at the fair, including those in the research and technology pavilion, provided considerable interest with several new variants of the Caddy. Among these was the attractively-liveried "Tier Taxi" (dog van} with glass reinforced plastic bodywork by Harderwijk of Holland, which is to be marketed through German bodybuilders.