“This is a car track. We shouldn’t be bringing a truck along this route,” said my Daimler companion in the cab.
I am at the Daimler Drive Series at the Mt Cotton test track, near Brisbane, and I’m looking at a deeply rutted, muddy track winding through a forest of trees.
I’d also watched the previous driver damage one of the side mirrors trying to weave his way between two of them.
I’m in a Mercedes-Benz Atego 927 AF 4×4 with a cab width of 2.3 metres and a wheel base nearly 3 metres long and I know is that this is not going to go around this track like a GQ Nissan Patrol.
I step up into the cab via cleverly designed hinged steps that will swing out of the way of whatever they may hit. Underneath me is a 7.7-litre inline Euro 6 diesel with 200kW and 1100Nm.
Putting that power through the diffs is, in this case, an Allison 6-speed auto ‘box. An M-B gearbox is also available but I’m told that firefighters, SES and some other bodies won’t have anything other than the Allison, so in the light of ‘the customer is always right’, Daimler is happy to oblige.
Into drive, release the old-fashioned handbrake and off I go, slipping and sliding down the initial drop before hanging a right through those mirror-shattering trees without inflicting further damage to them.
There’s a decent drop coming up and I touch nothing, letting the engine brake and compression do the work for us.
Around a sharp corner between another couple of trees with muddy ruts up to and sometimes past the wheel rims. This is not the shortest 4×4 in the world, and as I manoeuvre the front around the corner, I look in the remaining good wing mirror and see that the right rear tyres are going to take the tree out on that side – or vice versa.
“Don’t worry,” says my companion. “The back wheels will come around. Just drive straight and you’ll see the wheels will drop into the ruts and we will just let it walk around the tree.” And he is right.
Logs, bogs, rocks: this truck makes short work of everything the track throws at us. Faced with a 45-degree incline, put the rear diff lock on and just mosey on up (and down). This is the best fun I’ve had in a truck, like ever!
“Is there anywhere this couldn’t go?” I ask.
“I reckon it’s about 80 per cent as capable as a Unimog,” was the immediate answer. “And no-one could use those to their full potential.”
It’s worth noting that these trucks come out of the factory with ‘lagging’, meaning all the air and electrics are insulated; a requirement for fire engines.
I finish my run and proudly have done no more than dislocate a tail light cluster from its bracket.
“No worries. We’ll advertise it as ‘Executive Driven’, LOL.”
That drive was my last in a day where I’d been behind the wheel of multiple models and specifications in the Daimler Truck Drive Series line-up.
I’d started the day in an Arocs 6×4 tipper and dog loaded to 49 tonnes. This truck has 530hp and 2600Nm with MB’s 12-speed AMT and all the safety bells and whistles, including Side Guard Assist – pioneered by Mercedes and protecting pedestrians who may be unseen from the driver’s seat.
These trucks will spend their days with bods wandering around in close proximity so kudos to the company for its inclusion.
While the Mt Cotton track is not very long, it provides plenty of hairpin bends, sweeping corners, steepish hills and drops, together with flat running.
Drive this truck the right way, using the three-stage engine brake or occasionally manually changing the gear with a simple flick of the RH column, and you can do the full circuit without touching the brakes at all.
At stops, a tap on the brake will hold the truck for three seconds, whilst a decent push on them will hill-hold for 20 minutes. If you’re silly enough to forget and climb out of the truck, it will automatically put itself in Park.
There’s three-leaf parabolic suspension on the steers with eight-bag air on the rears. The truck rides so smoothly that I initially thought it was air all round. All in all, it’s a top tipper if you spend your days in this line of work.
There followed drives in a Fuso Shogun 530 Tipper and a Freightliner Cascadia 116 with the same engine. They all have their own personalities and all drive equally well. Of course the Cascadia is bonneted for those to whom this layout appeals.
Of note is that the tipper controls are incorporated into the dashboard rather than, as is often the case, on a pedestal between the seats – ergonomics being the name of the game.
Having had my fill of tippers, I move on to an Atego 1224 4×2 rigid with a tautliner body, followed by a bunch of semi-trailer set-ups from the three brands.
Want a lot of space? Go for the Cascadia 126 with its bunk offerings up to 60-inch and its 16-litre OM 471 offering up to 600hp. This is the truck to throw multiple trailers behind and cross the Nullarbor.
Want something Japanese? There’s the brand new Fuso Shogun with its horses upped from 510 to 530, a new front end and minor interior upgrades – perfect for local and intrastate work, with the ability to haul a B-double if needed.
Then there’s my favourite, the new Mercedes-Benz Actros 2663 ProCabin. Mercedes passed out drink coasters at the Brissie Truck Show that stated, ‘The Bigger the Truck, the Closer to God’.
Climb up and up and up into this truck and you’re rubbing shoulders with the Big Guy – 625 prancing ponies superbly matched with 3000Nm of torque, its 12 speed AMT knows what gear to be in all the time.
Thanks to topographic maps it knows the roads ahead and which of those gears to be in before you do. Should there be a road that you travel which is unmapped, the truck learns it! Minute attention to design aerodynamics means it sips fuel judiciously whilst being rated at a GCM of 106,000kg.
The interior is unmatched in the truck world for sumptuousness in a cabover. The lane-keeping steering is better than anything I’ve driven.
The seats are as good as your favourite lounge chair, the ergonomics as good as any and oh, the serenity! If you want to be transported to another place while you’re transporting, this is the truck.
Lastly, and just before I hop into that Atego 4×4, I run around the track in a Fuso Canter 615 wide body – but positively tiny after the Actros. This truck is a ripsnorter for the tradie with heaps of get up and go.
A really clever innovation is the tray. There is a stiffish rubber strip along the bottom of the sides leaving a small space between it and the tray.
This is so you can strap loads down through it to the rails, rather than over the top edges where you risk bending or pulling the sides in. Really simple and really clever.
And so the day ended where I started this story in the Atego 4×4. I so want to have a play in the Unimog and explore that extra 20 per cent.
