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Hold your horses

29th September 2011
Page 3
Page 3, 29th September 2011 — Hold your horses
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

With UK maximum weights unchanged for more than a decade, the advent of Volvo’s FH16 750 has CM asking why horsepower continues to climb and who’s buying?

Words: Ian Norwell / Images: Tom Cunningham

MANY OF US CAN recall a time when 10hp per tonne was considered more than adequate and you needed a lot less to stay legal. And while you can’t stand in the way of progress, isn’t it all getting a little silly?

We asked this at the driving launch of Scania’s R Series V8 range in May last year when the R730 was unveiled, trumping the FH16 700. “Why not 800hp or even 1,000hp?” we asked. In response, Scania product director, long-haul age, Joel Granath said: “It’s a balance between power, torque and fuel consumption and the optimal solution in this case is 730.” Not an answer to leave us a lot wiser, but he did go on to admit that only a small band of operators will be able to justify this output, and that there will inevitably be those who make an emotional choice rather than an operational one. A small band indeed.

Nick Blake, sales engineering manager at Mercedes-Benz com

mercial vehicles, was disarmingly honest when he told CM: “The sales position with these top power trucks has not changed in recent times. We sell a handful a year and they are probably mostly demonstrators that eventually make their way into the used market.”

Keeping trend alive

Mercedes’ current top-powered truck in its outgoing V8 range is the 1860, which delivers 590hp and 2,800Nm of torque. The manufac turer’s departure from a long relationship with ‘V’ engines, marked by the arrival of its straight-six OM471, does not signal any containment in power outputs. Daimler’s Euro-6 OM473 derivative, due for introduction in autumn 2012, will keep the trend alive with 616hp and 3,000Nm.

Our league table (see box p16) shows who’s who in the high-horsepower stakes, and when you examine the sales igures they fall squarely into two camps. In common with Mercedes, those who can count their top truck sales on the ingers of one hand are Iveco, MAN, Renault and DAF. The consensus view from this majority group is that there will always be the occasional operation where topography, perishable loads and tight deadlines inevitably push


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