ERF DOWN UNDER SMALL MARKET, BIG BUSINES
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ave jonassen, Western Star's boss down under reckons: "It's fun doing business in Australia. It's a huge country, with only 18rn people, and it needs trucks." That hardly explains why every truck manufacturer wants to be there. And that indudes Western Star with its 6x4 Commander cabover built by ERF.
It can't be because of the volumes. Last year truck sales in Oz amounted to little more than 18,2oo units over 3.5 tonnes. In the UK 52,962 vehicles were registered above 3.5 tonnes in 1998, including almost 17,300 attics. But everyone who's anyone is there.
Among the Europeans competing for a piece of the action are Iveco, MAN, Mercedes, Scania, Volvo and, via a local sales and assembly operation, Renault, whose Magnum and Premium models are sold under the Mack badge. And in May Daf pitched its hat into the ring, popping up at the Brisbane truck show as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paccar Australia. Then there are the Japanese, dominating the medium-duty 7.5 to 15-tonne sector.
Heavy truck
And finally there are the North Americans, represented by Mack, Freightliner, Stirling, Kenworth, International (through Iveco) and Canadian-based Western Star.
The US-driveline suppliers are led by the big three—Cummins, Cat and Detroit Diesel—plus Eaton/Fuller, Mentor, Spicer and a host of smaller component makers.
If volume isn't the reason to be down under then price might be. On Western Star's stand at the Brisbane show was one of its extended nose Constellation 49 EX bonneted tractors, designed to pull a triple roadtrain at 140 tonnes. The Goohp Cummins Signature engined 6x4 cost a cool AS$300,000 (Li28,0oo) fully road-ready But while that price tag looks attractive, the turnover of such vehicles is nothing like it is in the UK, where contract hire and leasing have brought first. life tractor ownership down to as little as 18 months. In Australia a top-line tractor could easily stay with the original buyer for io years.
However, Australia is the ultimate "test track". Daytime temperatures can rise to 4 o'C, before plummeting to just above zero at night. Then there are Australian roads. In populated areas there's at least black-top. In the outback you're looking at dirt roads baked by the sun into washboard surfaces.
Add to that the problems of air filtration, hauling massive gross weights and the need to fit a cab that can withstand the impact of a one-tonne bull in the road, and you're beginning to see what we mean.