Refinement rather than novelty is the theme
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Low profiles all round at Brussels this year, with only MAN breaking new ground. Roadtrains and Sherpas came over poorly. Tim Blakemore reports, with Brian Weatherley's pictures
THE 61ST BRUSSELS international commercial vehicle show, the first of 1983's many European cv exhibitions, closes tomorrow, January 23. It has probably set the style for the others to follow, with very few completely new products on display but plenty of evidence of refinement and adaptation of existing equipment to suit the customer's needs.
The customer is very important in Belgium these days. As in the rest of western Europe, the country that is the hub of the EEC has seen a general decline in annual cv registration since the boom year of 1979 and any new-year optimism to be found among manufacturers there is definitely guarded.
If there was one exhibitor at Brussels with something to trumpet it was MAN, which had a genuinely new model, the 12170F, to show the world, but the news broke with only a whisper.
This model is of particular interest to UK operators because its chassis frame and turbocharged and chargecooled 5.7-litre engine, developed from the naturally aspirated unit fitted in the MT range, might well be the basis for a future UK specification MAN 16-tanner; one which, judging by the Brussels Show model would be at least 700kg lighter than the current model. More details of the MAN 12.170 are on page 15 this week.
Volkswagen MAN's partner in the 6 to 9-tonne mr range, also has one of its vehicles making a European show debut at Brussels with the Caddy, Golf derived, Yugoslavian-built pickup (CM November 20 1982).
But no matter how successful the Caddy is in Belgium, it is not going to have a serious effect on the Japanese manufacturers' dominance of the light end of this country's cv market. With no indigenous manufacturers, the Belgians see no need for an "understanding" with the Japanese about import quotas such as exists between the SMMT and JAMA.
Interest in heavyweights at Brussels centred on Daf's new 6x2 models and Scania's
charge-cooled 11and 14-litre engines. Leyland followed up the European launch at last year's Paris Salon of the RollsRoyce-powered Roadtrain with a three-vehicle exhibit at Brussels comprising one Roadtrain, one Sherpa and one Belgian-built LFRE rear-engined bus chassis.
But by comparison with almost all others, the Leyland display was cramped and rather unattractive, and did little to help stimulate Roadtrain or Sherpa sales in Europe, in my opinion.
No British taxpayer would welcome an over-extravagant Leyland exhibition budget, but the cost of stand space at Brussels is relatively cheap and to succeed in such a competitil market any manufacturer musi adopt a more aggressive marketing approach, it seemsi me, than the Leyland stand suggested.
It did not do justice to the serious efforts now being mad+ by Leyland Vehicules Industrie (see page-Tito establish a good service and parts network. Moreover, locally recruited unenthusiastic staff who have not heard of the Royal Tiger Doyen and who have no information on it are hardly tho best type to promote the sale I Leyland coaches in Europe.