• With a loaded barrel the Atego six is hard
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to fault, not least when it comes to stability and manoeuvrability. Its tight 17.2m turning circle, courtesy of the mixer chassis' shortest 3.9m wheelbase, impressed us.
It had no trouble keeping up with the busy traffic around the North Circular Road on a local drop to a building site. In fact the in-line six is surprisingly free revving and you have to watch the revs in the first two gears as it accelerates briskly; its mid-range pulling power is also appreciated.
Without the splitter we couldn't quite get the best out of it but generally we had no trouble keeping within the green band. Change down too early and you get a warning beep in the cab—we had it once on a tight roundabout block shifting from fifth to third, thinking we'd need a low cog. But fourth is surprisingly flexible, even at low speeds.
The box is precise enough, and John advised using minimum effort on it: "Just push it gently against the spring and it will ease in." With the load discharged, the Atego will invariably pull away in second without caning the clutch, before block-shifting to fourth quite happily. Overall visibility is above average from the Atego cab and just right for the urban battleground. After a short spell we reckoned the 26288 was a truck you could do a good day's work in.