No towering sleeper cab tractors today, but a classic example of a ‘trip around the church’ delivery truck. A modern fuel tanker whose task is supplying diesel juice to farmers, agricultural/earth-moving contractors, and hauling companies in the vicinity of its home base.
Such straight tanker trucks are not used to deliver gasoline or diesel to filling stations. That’s a job for the semi-professionals, so to speak.
The DAF CF, in a plain yet effective livery, is owned by a local family business, founded in 1962. It’s powered by a 10.8 liter MX-11 engine with 370 DIN-hp, which is more than adequate.
The abbreviation FAN in the model designation is DAF jargon for a cabover (Frontstuur) straight truck chassis (Auto) with a 6×2*4 drivetrain (Naloopas), which means it has a counter-steering and -obviously- liftable tag axle.
The LAG tanker body with four compartments has a total capacity of 22,000 liters (5,812 US gallons), calculated as the sum of the numbers stated all the way at the top of the LAG body.
The interior and dashboard of a CF Euro 6 (emission standards), which is the final edition of the series. Clearly, this one has an automated manual transmission, the widely used ZF TraXon. Two years ago, the all-new XD superseded the CF.
Well, no need to look that up then, the info is right there on the tanker’s side. The translation is as follows: unladen weight 24,471 lbs, max. permissible mass 61,729 lbs. It may not travel far, but it’s serious (family) business alright.
I think it would be rather terrifying to wheel a truck like this around the little streets in NL, but I guess they are used to it.
Van Gelder Oliehandel is a good name for a business too 😉 with the right kind of oil imagine what a batch of oliebollen you could cook up.
‘Who are you, and where do you come from?’
Van Gelder from Gelderland.
Nice truck! Thanks for the explanation of its features. As you know, the old truck salesman loves these presentations. It is also fun for me to try to translate the Dutch language using my forgotten skills in German. While you translated “Leggewicht” as “unladen weight,” my mind went to “Light weight,” which made sense to me. Of course, that is predicated on whether I have any sense at all.
Well noticed Tom!
Leeg = empty (an empty truck is unladen, after all).
Lichtgewicht = lightweight (like in boxing).
Leeg = leer
It’s just that the Dutch have a permanent cold…
Leer = leather or ladder, among other things 🙂
We have similar trucks , mostly for home heating oil. Oddly a friend does deliver gasoline to gas stations using the unique to Oregon combination of a 6×4 straight truck with day cab and a full trailer where most states use a semi-trailer
I was thinking of home heating oil trucks as well, though I’m pretty sure that all of our heating oil trucks have a single rear axle.
That’s how almost all of these small, locally working companies started: delivering home heating oil.
But that’s history. Nowadays, heating oil (for heating houses and other buildings) is de facto non-existent in the Netherlands.
It’s natural gas (still the norm), propane (delivered with dedicated tanker trucks), electrically, or a hybrid form (gas/electrically).
There you go, a propane tanker truck. A Volvo FM 6×2*4, so the same chassis set-up as the article’s DAF (photo courtesy of BAS Truck Center).
Heating oil is still used around here, though mostly in older areas. We used to live in a townhouse built in the mid 1970s that had oil heat, and that was just about the latest construction I’ve come across that had oil. It was a relief to move somewhere heating by natural gas, so we didn’t need to hassle with the oil deliveries.
And here’s a propane truck from the American Midwest – I’m sure dual rear axle propane trucks are out there somewhere, but I can’t recall seeing one.
I remember our family house had a heating oil tank, a vertical tank, standing against the rear brick wall. Then we got natural gas, somewhere in the early seventies.
A guy from nearby arrived in a VW pickup (must have been a T2) with a tank on its bed. Bags of coals were also lying on the bed, next to the heating oil tank. He filled up the tanks in the hood. And suddenly, that was all history.
These days, propane is the norm in rural areas. Numerous farmers need both propane and diesel fuel…and let’s not forget AdBlue fluid.
Obviously it has the ZF auto shift I know it has Johannes but which control points it out for those DAF newbies? the lever next to the steering wheel is the parking brake.
It’s in the yellow circle (click on picture to enlarge):
That cab looks like a pleasant place to spend a day.
Hopefully more than one. It’s quite an investment, after all.
A cousin of mine was a truck driver. Once, he told me, he liked to drive the DAF most of all the trucks he had ever driven. Sadly, he passed away in spring this year.
Sorry for your loss. And yes, DAF has a reputation for designing trucks ‘around the driver’. That goes back to the 1962 DAF 2600.
370hp seems a lots for a 6×2 Rigid, with a lifting rear axle.
270 was the norm, considering 6×4 max gross weight, within the EU is 26 Metric Tonnes. 10hp per tonne.
370hp is something that would be used on 2+3 Tractor & Trailer set up on trunking.
And its not like the Netherlands has got any mountains, that would make greater the 10 per Tonne necessary. (eg Switzerland, and the various European mountain ranges).
Those norms? Numbers of yore, especially here. Plenty of guys in NL drive trucks and tractors with more than 600 or even more than 700 hp for a 40 to 50 tonnes rig. Just because they can and want to. Mind you, with one drive axle.
In NL, the GVWR for a factory, on-highway straight truck with three axles (so never mind 6×6) can go up to 29 tonnes, in which case the truck must have a 10 tonnes front axle. Anything goes: 6×2, 6×4, 6×2/4 or 6×2*4 (Van Gelder’s tanker truck has a 9 tonnes front axle, thus 28 tonnes gross weight).
At least it’s a good thing you can mingle with the rest of the traffic easier with a few extra horses under the cab.