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Size matters this week as L Radley hops, skips and even jumps around an Iveco cab.
Page 9
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I said a few weeks ago that the only good thing I could think of to say about the new version of the Iveco Stralis was that it is big.
Let me just expand on that a bit, since the importance of the statement seems to have passed quite a few people by.
No matter how you dress it up, no matter how many clever features you include in a cab design, the vast majority of sleeper cabs on the market are still cluttered tin boxes with wheels on. The Strati& however, is actually a room.
I'll never forget the first time I moved my kit into a first-generation Stralis. A few months previously I'd dragged it all out of a Scania P cab and watched it spread comfortably about the place in a Eurotech.
When I put it into the Stralis, however, it vanished. When I parked up for my first night a few hours later, I just sat there for a good 20 minutes with my mouth open in the manner of an awestruck four-year-old on Christmas morning. Always an lveco fan, I was now a full-blown evangelist.
Following the initial let-down of my week spent in the new version, I was feeling a touch disillusioned by my erstwhile favourite manufacturer. I've had five years living in the original Stralis, so some disquiet was inevitable. But, above all, I'd forgotten the full importance of size.
I'm in a Volvo at the moment. An XL-cabbed FH, no less. It's a proper badge-tarts' motor. People look at you with respect when you climb out of it. Unfortunately it is also cramped, and quite obviously designed by someone who was never in any danger of having to live in it.
It does have a few redeeming features, though, that go into at greater length next time, but for the time being, it's quite simple... I don't care if bits of the new Stralis fly about and land on you when you don't expect it. At least in the Italian machine they have room in which to do so. So that'll be me back to being an Iveco bore, then.