The art of specifying a truck for the Australian market is all about looking at what is available on the assembly line and getting the mix just right between what’s desirable and what’s practical in this country. Many trucks being sold in Australia today come out of very large global stables, produced by global companies.
One of the trucks on the Australian market which is a good example of taking the components available from the truck designers and coming up with a suitable option for Australian truck buyers is the new Fuso 510 prime mover.
Early attempts by the global groups like Daimler and Volvo to integrate the technologies, philosophies and preferences of Europe, North America and Asia we were clumsy coalitions, which were a bit hit and miss. The trucks produced had tried to combine the best of the different worlds, but often appeared like American trucks with a European add-on built for Japan, or a combination of the above.
Those first models produced between 2000 and 2015 proved to be part of a learning curve for the big global players. In the last few years, trucks have begun to appear which seamlessly mix technologies from different continents in a way which will work for our market.
This truck is clearly a Fuso from the outside, but on the inside there is a cocktail of different componentry from across the Daimler Group to come up with a contiguous whole. Essentially, in this Shogun all of the bits join up.
That functional appearance, common across all Japanese models, encloses a much more sophisticated system going on beneath the surface. This truck is aimed squarely at that part of the Australian truck market which is not fussed about having the most modern cabin design or the shiniest bling.
This is for the operator who is looking for a truck which gets the job, but also offers all of the latest smarts available to improve fuel economy and safety outcomes, while fulfilling tender requirements from the big corporates, and getting the mix just right between what’s desirable and what’s practical.
