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22nd March 2007, Page 32
22nd March 2007
Page 32
Page 33
Page 32, 22nd March 2007 — STRONGER
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Keywords : Fiat, Iveco, Truck, Iveco Stralis

Sillitl.

Since last week's unveiling of the revised !yea)

Stralis range, CM has been back to Rome for a

more detailed look at the latest developments.

Colin Barnett drew the short straw...

Some of the changes to the Stralis,notahly the revamped styling, apply to the whole of the existing range. New exterior panels provide small aerodynamic benefits and, maybe more importantly, answer criticisms from some operators that the old model didn't provide enough usable space for the display of a company name or logo.

Drivelines remain more or less unchanged, except that the standard meets Euro-5 ( via SCR and AdBlue). If you must have Euro-4 (and we can't see why) it's still available in the UK as a special order. Asked at the launch about the introduction of common-rail fuel systems to replace the existing unit injectors, Fiat Towel-train vice-president Dario Ivaldi said unit injection remained the right answer, for now at least. But he dropped a hint that !veto's Euro-6 engines would feature commonrail injection-interesting giVen the suggestion in some quarters that the company isn't making plans for the next emissions hurdle.

The Euro-5 engines are based on the existing Cursor 8, 10 and 13 units, with outputs from 310 to 560hp as before. What has changed is that maximum torque is now available from 1,000rpm. Iveco claims fuel consumption is up to 5% lower than with Euro-3 and oil-change intervals are now set at 150,1100km the longest offered on any Euro-5 engine. For the UK, the supplied EuroTronic 2 remains the standard transmission; apart from minor software twea ksto match the new engines it is unchanged.The three-rocker-switch control layout introduced with Euro-4 is also retained.

The big change is the greatly improved top-of-the-range cab. There's been a bit of a muddle over its name, because in the middle of last week Iveco suffered a manufacturer's worst nightmare. If you read early reports, you will have seen that it was badged Cube. However, this came to the attention of Nissan, which already used the name on a small family car. By the time CM arrived in Rome for an in-depth look at the new model, the offending badge had been removed; from now on, we'll refer to it by its new name,AS3 and AS Super3 pronounced, the marketing folk insist, 'AS to the power of three'.

The high-roof cab LS 95mm higher and 90(mit longer than before, creating an extra 1.811.0 of volume. The upper bunk is now lifted by gas struts, folds flat against the rear wall and is accessed via an aluminium ladder that reaches to cab floor level. There are three options for the lower bunk, the most useful being a three-segment mattress with a large table folding out of the underside of the stowed central segment. However, the wider mattress on the passenger end of the left-hand-drive test tracts limits the range through which the passenger seat can be reclined.

Cab storage has been increased by 15%, to almost 500 litres; all the storage lockers are illuminated. There are now two levels of external lockers, opened electrically.

The instrument panel features an improved information display which, like the new trim material and external styling, is shared with smaller models.

On the road With limited changes to the driveline, the Stralis driving experience is much as before. However, the lower-speed torque curve reinforces the feeling that all versions are punching well beyond their weight.

With all test trucks loaded close to 40 tonnes there was a good opportunity to try the differences on a fairly hilly 35km test route. Although the UK tends to take only the higherpowered Cursor 13 models, we were surprised by the way in which even the 1,5410Nnri Cursor 8 360 went, helped by the EuroTronic 2 transmission which kept lion the boil.

We were expecting to have to override the transmission occasionally, but were usually beaten to the punch by the computer. At the other end of the scale,the Cursor 13560 stayed in 12th for most of the time, and got off the line as smartly as you would expect. Mind you, we did notice quite a bit of cab nod during the lower-speed upshifts under full power.

There's no messing with power and economy modes,with maximum powercoming courtesy of a throttle-pedal kick-down. We sampled the ZF 16-speed manual box in a Cursor 10 450 — an option that doesn't usually feature on UK models—and were pleasantly surprised by its crisp and predictable operation.

Among the Stralis's new options are a lane departure warning system, which we were able to try, and a revised adaptive cruise control and hill hold, which we weren't. The lane warning worked as expected, with the wake-up call coming through the radio speaker on the side of the wandering.

All models suffered from slightly vague steering on the marginal Italian roads, hut until we sample them on more familiar territory we'll reserve judgement.

Tags

Locations: Rome

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