Shining in Shropshire I RTE '98 was the year of
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the reluctant In spite of all this, the exhibition at Telford was a great success. There were plenty of operators looking at innovative products from chassis and body builders right down to the smallest component makers. Mercedes was on hand for the show debut of its Atego; Isuzu was there with its new 7.5-tonner. Among the trends gathering pace in the industry are rearsteer axles on semi-trailers and buckleless curtainsiders. Fruehauf, Gray & Adams, and Cartwright all had examples of the former while Lawrence David, Montracon and Don-Bur showed versions of the smooth curtainsider.
Telford marked the first UK outing for Leyland Daf's 45 Series factory-built sleeper cab. The allsteel conversion adds 100kg to the kerbweight, with an extra 230mm to the roof height and 550mm to the cab depth. For an extra £2,430 you get a decent bunk with 90 litres of storage space below it. The show truck is destined for furniture manufacturer Furmanac. • Mercedes gave its Atego distribution range a full UK airing at IRTE, including sleeper and crew-cabbed variants. There are four cabs in the range: a short day cab; a 180mm longer version; a long-distance sleeper; and a high-roof sleeper with 1,920mm of headroom. Merc's Atego 1217 with a Roger Dyson Hydraloader recovery body and HMF 9000 loading crane had a four-man bench seat instead of the bunk; the 1317 with Southfields curtainsider bodywork had the hightop cabin. Eight Ategos graced the show and there are already more than 200 in the UK, with 40 in Merc's demo fleet alone. • SDC was showing its new roof lift system on a curtain-sided mega-trailer. Scissor mechanisms within the front and rear bulkheads are powered via air springs running off the main air reservoir to give 280mm of lift to assist side loading (a later version will have 500mm of lift). The present system weighs around 120kg. The company is also making a foray into the GRP box van market with a new design that is said to be stronger than the competition.
• Roger Dyson's lveco 370hp 340E37 10x4 EuroTrakkerbased Sliding Rotator crane will be a real attention grabber on motorway rescues. The 10x4 has a trailing 13-tonne Hendrickson lift axle. Its Canadian-made sliding-boom NRC crane can lift 38 tonnes over the rear or 21 tonnes a metre out from the sides. Extended to 9.0m it will hoist 5.9 tonnes over the tail or 4.4 tonnes at the flanks. The rig also features twin manual or radio controls, two 35-tonne winches, beefy box-section stiff legs and a 6 to 16m underlift with new lift forks and wheel grids. Dyson, NRC's sole UK agent, will also exhibit the Sliding Rotator at this year's AVRO show.
• Mercedes-Benz finally revealed its Autotrans-equipped Actros in right-hand-drive form on an 1848LS artic with the Executive "bells 'n' whistles" sleeper cab. The 476hp 16-litre vee-eight unit comes with Telligent Auto transmission incorporating a clutchless gearchange: if the electronics falter an old-fashioned conventional clutch pedal can be used to help change gear. It should reduce driver fatigue, but adds another £1,791 to the £69,880 price tag (you can spec a 3.6 or 3.9m wheelbase at no extra cost). • Fruehauf's new Iceliner reefer was designed in collaboration with Transamerica for supermarket operators. The need was for flexibility inside with efficient cooling and low noise. An RTC flexible demountable partition system and bulkheads give 1/3 and 2/3 lane partitions with the option of an ambient area. Cooling comes from an under-mounted Frigoblock D524 measured for noise at 13d8(A). The chassis is all aluminium; the trailer's unladen weight is 9,100kg. • British Gas will be evaluating this 6x2 305hp (227kW) Seddon Atkinson Strata for the added manoeuvrability offered by its rear-steer axle. The driveline is the usual Cummins 305 Celect engine, Eaton Rh 1609A gearbox and Mentor 3.42:1 axle, but the trailing 8.0-tonne Hendrickson axle has a ZF hydraulic-steering system. Bodied by Lakeland Tankers of Redditch, the 26-tonne, 4.8m-wheelbase gas tanker should be able to make deliveries to difficult sites such as farms, small factory units and the like more easily than the long-wheelbase 4x2 rigid chassis.
• G&A's 12.9m two-axled Safeway reefer features positive steering at the back with an innovative temperature-control system. It's a combination of a Carrier Polara heater and BOC's Polarstream system, modified to use synthetic liquified air (SLA) rather than liquid nitrogen which pulls temperatures down quickly and quietly but is lethal if inhaled. SLA, a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, will pull down to around –30°C in less then three minutes but when fully vapourised can be used where people are working.
* Gray & Adam's latest twindeck reefer has enabled BOC Distribution Services to reduce its M&S distribution fleet. The 13.6m semi with Carrier Genesis TM800 fridge unit carries 43 cages in a chilled area on top, with 12 in the frozen section below ahead of the axles and another dozen behind the axles at ambient. A top-deck height of 2.06m with 1.87m downstairs gives plenty of headroom, while two specially adapted Dhollandia lifts help with loading and unloading from either floor—one forms part of the upper floor. G&A uses Twaron carbon fibre insulated body panels and fits SAF stubaxled running gear. • Cartwright claims its new City Trailer can hold the same volume as two conventional 17-tanners. This 26-tonne urban artic has the same turning circle as a rigid distribution truck thanks to a command-steer rear axle. At around £70,000 for the rig, Cartwright claims a saving of 20p/mile compared with a drawbar with 17% less dead mileage. The City Trailer comes with the company's TransDek MegaDek loading system and BPW axle air suspension.
• Steyr-Puch has re-launched its G4x4 into the UK market. The vehicle, which was previously sold here behind a Mercedes badge, is available as a 2,900kg GVW van or a 4,100kg GVVV chassis-cab. It's powered by the 120hp (88kW) five-pot turbo-diesel engine from the Sprinter, driving through a four-speed automatic transmission with selectable four-wheel drive. • Cartwright showed this modified version of its Doubledeck stepframe van for Securicor. The whole interior design was based round Securicor's loading bay height of 1,250mm. Both levels can be loaded at the bay height, with the lower level being raised and loaded first; this also allows all of the available volume to be used. The decks are moved by a hydraulic ram/chain system. The 13.6m van also features Mentor disc brakes. • Keighley-based Wilson TS equipped this high-spec 420hp Scania 1241 eye-catcher for drawbar work by Blackburn international haulier Stuart Taylor. The prime mover is the first of its type in the UK. Power comes from Scania's unitinjection 12-litre engine; all three axles have air suspension and disc brakes—the spec also includes satellite tracking and a retarder. The cab is the latest Solo Hi-line. Based on Wilson's 80mm ladder-type sub-frame, the 7.25m unit and 8.25m trailer curtained bodies give a combined 122m3 capacity with a reasonable loading height. The 3+3 curtainsided outfit had standard drum braked Gigant axles for the show, but these have since been changed to air-suspended and disc-braked versions. Remarkably, Taylor took just 24 hours to paint the unit in his own workshop—but the whole rig still set him back around £112,000.
• Above: This special-order 3.0m-wheelbase 75.290CF for Waitrose shows how much Daf is prepared to do "on-line", including fitting the fifth wheel, a tidy suzie boom and trailer tail-lift connector stowage. In a bid to cut delivery times. Left: Leyland Daf is also offering a "Fast Crane" fitting service for lorry-mounted cranes at its Leyland assembly plant to avoid the delay of sending it to a bodybuilder or dealer. • Fruehauf showed its first cable-steer tandemaxle box van for Boots. Its main advantage is the load volume of a 12m trailer combined with the manoeuvrability of a 6m-wheelbase rigid. The cable system (proven in continental use for 10 years) runs off a turntable on the fifth-wheel coupling—the final gearing is three to one. The trailer also contains Polyfont's new FIT 3000 PVC roller shutter door, offering a weight saving of 30% compared with plywood.
• Cummins will soon unveil "Interactive System" versions of its electronic 11-litre MSeries and 8.3-litre C-Series diesels. As well as a faster processing unit for the engine management system, the new ISM and ISC power units will feature revised power and torque characteristics. • Having successfully introduced 3.5-tonne, six and 7.5-tonne lightmiddleweight models into the UK, Isuzu is now preparing to bring in an F-Series 17-tonne rigid by the back end of 1999. The company has already received 107 orders for its latest NKR and NQR models which incorporate many changes to suit UK operations. Features include a narrow cab and a two-year unlimited-distance warranty. • Trailer brake lining should be easier to moni tor thanks to Duron's new Brake Alert system. This uses sensors in the wheel connected to a batch of LED warning lights which come on when the lining wears down. Each sensor (up to six in total) replaces a rivet on each brake shoe. The system is designed for retro-fitting and will soon be available for disc brakes.
• Metalair-Feldbinder displayed this bottom-discharge sugar tanker; one of the first to be supplied to the sugar industry. Borrowing from cement tanker technology, it claims a three-tonne advantage over an equivalent tipping tank with a saving of 15 minutes unloading time. To comply with food handling regulations, all access is controlled from a secure rearmounted cabinet.
• Renault made extensive modifications to its Premium tractor for Shell's order of 30. They are the first long-distance tractors to be fitted with day cabs. A fire screen, engineered by Renault, was added, along with other safety features such as an extra window on the passenger side and a convex mirror to provide front-bumper vision. The Premium; gearshift is swapped for a Magnurjn shift to retain the same shift pattern as other trucks on the fleet. Renault sees the modified Premium as a .model in its own right. ieladock. • MAN's tractor range will be revised in time for this year's Hanover Show in September. Premium, high-power 12-litre haulage versions of the F2000 artic will get the raised cab that is currently reserved for the most powerful vee-10-engined 18.603. It sits some 120mm higher on the chassis to improve cooling and fuel economy.
Ratcliff's most significant exhibit was its all-aluminium 1,000kg Quickfit Column Lift which is 100kg lighter than its aluminium-platform predecessor. Other claimed benefits include a higher payload, lower maintenance and increased residual value. It is available in a range of standard sizes with a fixed leading edge or hinged ramps to form a stop.