n easy riding thoroughbred
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• Last week, before the Barcelona show opened, we went to the Madrid headquarters of Enasa, the Spanish state-owned CV manufacturer to drive a preproduction Troner tractive unit at 40-tonnes GCW. Our test vehicle is one of 15 pilot production vehicles which have been undergoing trials with Spanish operators. Its disguise includes a dull green, militarylooking livery, various loosely fitted non-standard panels, and no badges.
Had the badges been fitted, they would have read 1236.38T, which, according to the established but unorthodox Pegaso model designation system, indicates one drive axle on a two-axle vehicle with a 360hp (ISO 1585) engine and a nominal GCW of 38-tonnes (Spain's maximum weight limit was increased to 40 tonnes two months ago to bring it into line with its EEC partners).
The Cabtec cab is by no means the only new component on this truck, it has for example an extensively revised turbocharged and air-to-air charge-cooled 12 litre engine, a new light chassis frame and a new Pegaso single reduction axle with a ratio of 3.07:1, but naturally it is the cab in which we are most interested.
Enasa's engineers appear to have taken every opportunity they can to smooth airflow around the new, squarish steel panelled calz, It has an integral under-burhper air dam, two full-length front corner deflectors between bumper and windscreen and no unnecessary protuberances.
Even the headlamp washer jets, which are fitted as standard on the top-of-therange TX high-roof twin sleeper cab, are designed to avoid air turbulence: they extend forwards on pneumatically-actuated pistons when in use and then retract back into the bumper.
Our test truck is fitted with the TX, high-roof which, like its rivals such as the Daf Spacecab or Volvo's Globetrotter has a relatively high cab floor. Nevertheless, access to the air-suspended Grammer driver's seat is exceptionally easy due to the clever positioning of the three steps which not only taper out towards the bottom, T45-style, but also slope gently downwards to make for safe, easy-to-find footholds.
One of the best compliments we can pay the designers of the interior of the Pegaso Cabtec cab is that we quickly felt at ease behind its wheel even though the first 15 or 20 kilometres of our drive in it was through unforgiving Madrid traffic.
Having overcome the Pegaso peculiarity of splitter switching on its ZF Ecosplit which gives down on the button for high split and up for low, we soon began to appreciate some of the finer points of this cab's design.
The field of visibility from the driver's seat is excellent, mainly due to the deep windscreen, slim pillars and door windows apertures which slope down towards the front.
The Troner has the optiona1,4a, SAF air suspension on its drive axle combined with tapered leaf steel springs at the front: nothing exceptional there. What is exceptional is the TX cab's four point air suspension with levelling valves which control both pitch and roll.
At first the impression is that the suspension is a mite too soft but as the truck was made to work harder and harder on rough mountain roads where any miscalculation on a bend could put truck and driver off the road permanently, our opinion changed. A tendency to oversteer proved to be a temporary problem. This is because the effect of the cab air suspension is to limit roll more than the driver expects and fool him into turning into the corner a little more tightly. Enasa uses ZF and Bendix (Bencliberica) power steering boxes and our truck is fitted with the latter type. We would be very interested to see if the excellent new ZF Servocom steering, as fitted to MAN's F90 trucks would be more precise.