In Queensland’s Southern Downs capital city of Warwick resides Wickham Freightlines’ unusually designed head office, a building looking like a cab-over Kenworth prime mover and semi-trailer. The place is a hive of activity, with a dedicated team working hard to keep the wheels turning on an operation that now encompasses around 170 trucks.
Steve Lord, who has been with the company for 15 years, is Workshop Manager and he expands on the undying loyalty Wickham has to the Kenworth brand.
“We strayed a little a decade or so ago when the EGR engines were giving us grief but in the main it’s been Kenworth all the way,” says Steve, adding that the company purchased 25 units last year and will receive another 15 this year. “They will mostly be K200 Big Cabs and we also have one of the first new K220s coming for evaluation this year.
“We’re pretty excited about the new K220 because we had a bit to do with its development, particularly in the area of cab suspension.”
Steve explains that Wickhams is a very proactive company that tries to improve products wherever possible to make life better for its drivers and the company in general.
One of these ameliorations has been to design, develop and test an airbag suspension system for the rear of the K200 cab to improve the ride for the driver. The full story about it appears in Tech Know on page 70 of this issue of PowerTorque.
Suffice to say the successful venture caught the attention of Paccar and one of Wickham’s K200s fitted with the cab suspension ended up at the company’s R&D centre at Bayswater (Vic) so the integrity of the system could be fully evaluated.
By all accounts, the upcoming K220 cab-over, said to be slated for release in June this year, will feature a similar cab suspension system developed by Paccar.
Steve says he’s looking forward to the new K220 breaking cover, and he thinks it will represent a significant improvement over the current K200.
“From what I understand they have done a lot of work on the wiring and cab layout including the air-conditioning system which will help bring it up to speed,” says Steve.
Wickhams has a similar philosophy of continual improvement and the company has been experimenting with different safety, comfort and aerodynamic features on the Kenworths for many years with varying levels of success.
“We’ve had some successes and some dismal failures, but if you don’t try you’ll never know,” says Steve.
