Clubbing together for Europe
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IN RECENT weeks the light range from the Club of Fou sortium has been receiving a grt of publicity. DAF and Savier already unveiled their respective KHD has done so in Germany, r Monday saw the release from But who are the Club of Four? H they co-operate and why? Thi Cl'! provides some of the back information on the group.
In terms of membership, th comprises DAF, Klockner-Hur Deutz (Magirus), Saviem and Early in 1971 they discussed ti sibility of increasing their res vehicle ranges with the additi( "light" truck — in the region of tons gvw. Taking Volvo as a example, this is a completely nev. category for them the short ha distribution type. To design and c a light truck starting with a clea of paper would have been prohi expensive hut a far more at proposition was a joint design a ment with two or more compani ing the design and tooling cost Strangely enough the member the consortium came about par result of existing co-operation or manufacturing side. Saviem is 01 the commercial vehicle sect Renault, and Renault were su the petrol engines for some of ti cars. Renault were also involve( cussions with Volvo over jo interests so from there to joint ci cial vehicle interests was but step. 'The fourth member comt K HD, joined as a result of a gene interchange over the previous y
Although popularly named tl of Four the company is officially as the Societe Europeene de Tra loppenient. or ETD for short, le chairmanship of M. Maurice , the deputy director-general of
ing around Europe
signing a joint co-operation nt, a group design office was set Paris in 1972 with a staff of ), the great majority of whom mated" by the four companies. re design expertise had been .nd the basic parameters drawn the "second function" of the ne into operation. This was the )f bulk buying or shopping Europe for the most suitable nt at the most advantageous case in point is the gearbox, five-speed all-synchromesh unit German company of ZF is used e manufacturers.
e production vehicles are an ig mixture of components "Club" bits while others are Ito the company of origin. The ross-members are common to the main side-members are r to the separate models. If that .:omplicated the arrangement rod uction is even more so. The ;teel components for the Club produced from ETD-owned Heuliez and other smaller in France. K HD then .5 the whole structure in unform for its own use and for Volvo but Saviem assembles :abs. The trimming is done by lers individually.
excluded
.gines are excluded from the ement, which has resulted in a I of business for Perkins who me of the power units for both I Volvo. KHD use their own engines throughout while use naturally aspirated and -ged versions of an MAN int agreement which appears :ed on paper has apparently o the satisfaction of all con; the first vehicles from the cohave already been unveiled. gh the prod uctiorr, buying, ind development aspects were it as a joint venture, this cowill definitely not extend to :ting side. Each member will be I its trucks in whatever country ,s. This means that, as an Germany will not be the sole )f KHD, who could face coin.om the other three in its home — and not only the other three. )f the existing Saviem/ MAN ion, the Saviem range will also n Germany under the MAN In the case of after-sales service and warranty claims, these will be the responsibility of the individual companies. The customer feedback of information from the field will continue to be sent to the Club headquarters for reference purposes but all servicing and spares requirements will be between the customer and the DAF, KHD, Saviem and Volvo dealers.
There are no immediate plans for bringing the Club vehicles into the UK although this is obviously on the cards as the cab front pressing is already designed for both left and right hand windscreen wiper patterns. The big problem in this country will almost certainly be the price, and this European consortium is well aware of the keenly competitive position of UK-built lightmedium trucks on the Continent as well as in Britain.