FH16 750 IN NEW ZEALAND
Truck & Driver Summer 2019^63
Wizardry
in Oz
New Zealand’s Volvos hail
from Brisbane, Australia,
where FMs, FHs and FH16s are
assembled using 30% local
content. The factory employs
560 people plus a further 50
R&D engineers. Last year the
plant produced 2100 trucks,
300 of which were exported
to New Zealand. The split
between FM and FH is 60:40,
with just a tiny handful of
FH16s finding buyers. Some
80% of all Volvos sold in New
Zealand are 8x4s.like this to operate in Blighty, we’d
no doubt refer to it as a Longer
Heavier Vehicle – which would
immediately be a PR nightmare.
Although we quickly get
comfortable in the driver’s seat, it
proves difficult to adjust the
mirrors correctly. The main ones
just don’t seem to give decent
coverage. We will later learn that
antipodean truck mirrors are
different to European-spec ones;
rather than convex, the glass is
completely flat. Apparently, this
makes it easier to judge
distances, which is especially
important when reversing longer
vehicles. The smaller ‘spotter
mirrors’ are, however, convex
and used for seeing where the
trailer is on bends and for
checking on overtaking vehicles.One of four
Damien tells us that his truck is
one of four FH16s on the Temuka
Transport fleet and was
purchased to celebrate the
company’s 50th anniversary in- He’s been driving it since
September 2018, having come
out of an FM 540. Although he
reckons the FM was perfectly
adequate for 58 tonnes, he now
considers himself extremely
fortunate to have the additional
power and larger cab.
On learning that the UK’s
maximum weight is 44 tonnes,
he naturally assumes that FH16s
are incredibly scarce. He’s in
shock to learn that last year
Volvo sold 92 of them in the UK
and that 69 were rated at 750hp.
He shakes his head in
amazement when we tell him
about an operator we recently
met up with whose heavily-
customised FH16 750 is used for
moving half-empty boxes out of
Felixstowe. “As you’ll see later,
we really make our trucks work
for a living,” he says.
The scenery in New
Zealand’s South Island is
stunning, and today we’re seeing
some of the best of it. That said,
we’d see more of it were it not for
the stone guard obstructing our
view at the bottom of the screen.
Damien informs us that every
long-haul truck has one fitted in
the factory and that they save a
fortune in replacement glass.
While the roads in this part of the
country are good, elsewhere they
are appalling, and loose surfaces
are common. But, unlike in
Australia, bull-bars are a
rarity. Over there drivers
have emus, wild camels
“No, seriously, you will be reversing it!” Regular FH driver Damien
Hall (right) much prefers a Euro cab-over to a US conventional