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Show News Ex tra....Show News Extra.. Show News Extra..
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continued from page 47 6LXC is a disappointing 'absentee from Earls Court, but this is because it is not possible to hurry endurance testing rather than because of any design problems. The Gardner personnel at the Show are enthusiastic about their latest product and although it is not possible at this stage to give any details of the new engine it would appear that the exhausi manifold is of a similar design to that of the eight-cylinder engine — using separate pipes rather than a common manifold.
On the transmission front there is a great deal of interest in automatics of one form or another. This of course is an old chestnut as far as commercial vehicles are concerned. Everyone has been predicting an increase in the production of automatics for years, but it has never really happened. This year, however, it looks as though this might change.
Both Scania and Volvo have Allison-equipped machines available as catalogued options and both are on show at Earls Court, The top-weight Bedford TM 4200 also has an automatic transmission. Whether operators are prepared to pay the extra El ,500/E2,000 is another matter. It has always been argued that the more automatic gearboxes that are specified, the lower the first cost will be on the grounds that the production runs will be longer and thus more economical. I am not really convinced about this. As far as the European truck market is concerned at the moment, automatic means Allison.
Now Allison already produces a tremendous number of transmissions for world wide use in many fields and even a large scale swing to automatics among European truck builders is hardly likely to affect Allison's total production to such an extent that a significant reduction in first cost would be possible.
On the same topic, the recently announced "letter of intent" between MercedesBenz and IVECO to develop and produce an automatic transmission underlines the problem of balancing production capacity against demand and price.
Automatic
Things are evidently moving on the automatic side as ZF is pushing hard with its Transma
tic system. This is not strictly speaking an automatic gearbox but a standard ZF synchromesh box coupled to a Transmatic torque converter. With the system, the driver theoretically has the best of both worlds with a manually operated box including the advantages of a converter torque multiplication. Certainly the ZF unit is further on as far as production is concerned than Eaton's much publicised Snapper box. At the moment the Transmatic is being produced at the rate of about 300 per month and it is already available as a listed option for MAN, Magirus and Mercedes in Germany. Currently a 400 series Seddon Atkinson with a Rolls-Royce 265 engine is being fitted with the Transmatic for ICI. Although ZF is obviously not committing itself to a definite price at this stage, the figure of E1,500 over a standard transmission is being talked about.
The Eaton Snapper is rumoured to cost around £300 extra if and when it is ever offered for the UK. Within the next year, the transmission front is going to get very interesting indeed.