A compact show, well organized by a regional truckers club in the southeast of the Netherlands. Free entry, plenty to see, yet Generation Alpha clearly ruled.
Here’s one of them, a 2019 DAF XF 530 FTG tractor. The letters FTG explained: a cabover tractor with a 6×2/4 drivetrain, made by DAF.
2022 Volvo FH 6×2/4 tractor with a 2018 Knapen moving floor semi-trailer. The Legro company supplies potting soil and substrates.
1984 Volvo F10 tractor. Once upon a time, the F10, F12 and later F16 trucks and tractors roamed the roads across the whole continent and beyond. Superb rolling equipment of yore.
2014 Volvo FH 8×2 tridem flatbed truck with its own crane.
This configuration has become quite common over the past years, a drive axle between a steering and liftable pusher axle and a ditto tag axle. The total axle weight limit for this tridem set-up is 27 metric tons (59,525 lbs).
1975 Peterbilt 359 6×4 tractor, powered by a Detroit Diesel 8V92TA.
1995 Peterbilt 362 6×4 tractor, the 362 was the truck maker’s last big cabover model. This Pete is also powered by a Detroit Diesel, a Series 60, 12.7 liter inline-six. For the record, that’s a four-stroke engine.
Contributor and commenter dman can tell you everything you want to know about the 362, as he was involved in its development.
The DAF XF / XG / XG+ series, introduced in the summer of 2021, is PACCAR’s latest and highly successful top segment COE. Driving school Van Oijen showed their 2022 DAF XG 480 FT tractor, coupled to a 2014 Kögel tridem axle semi-trailer.
2008 Ford Transit 2.4 TDCi flatbed truck with a 2016 Henra tandem axle trailer. Just sitting there, a bit lost, but the combination got my attention anyway.
2017 DAF XF 530 FT tractor. Very rare, because low roof.
2017 MAN TGX tractor with a 2007 Meusburger low loader with curtain sides. Such semi-trailers are used to transport all kinds of machines and machinery.
A fine example of a typical cargo for this type of low loader, as posted by the rig’s owner on their FB-site.
Wonderful, a 1966 DAF A16DA500 beer truck. This generation of conventionals, commonly referred to as the DAF Torpedo, was introduced in 1957.
The DAF truck has the DA 475 diesel engine under its hood, a 4.75 liter inline-six with 100 hp. The number 500 in the model designation refers to the wheelbase in cm.
By the way, Bavaria Bier (as in Bavaria Beer) doesn’t come from Bayern.
Everything period correct.
An all-black -even the li’l Michelin Men- 2021 Volvo FH16 6×2/4 tractor that goes by the name of Dikke Shit. With 664 DIN-horses, I’m sure it will go alright.
The Van Kessel company hosts the annual event. Parked back in their yard, a 2013 Mercedes-Benz Actros 6×2*4 truck with a LAG tanker body. LAG from Belgium also used to build buses and coaches in the past, but that division was taken over by Van Hool.
The Benz is rated at a gross weight of 28,000 kg (61,700 lbs). If it had been a short wheelbase tractor unit, that would have been exactly the same. It’s simply the sum of the axle weight limits: 9,000 kg for the front axle and 19,000 kg for the rear tandem (19,800 and 41,900 lbs, respectively).
2016 Scania R450 6×2 truck with a hooklift hoist, carrying a flatbed with dropsides.
2022 Scania 590S V8 tractor with a 2013 Berdex semi-trailer for transporting livestock. Pigs, more specifically.
2023 Spierings SK597-AT4 eLift mobile (and folding) crane. The carrier is powered by a DAF/PACCAR MX-11 turbodiesel engine, whereas the crane’s eLift system has two operating modes, an electrical and a hybrid mode.
Last year, this combination was also on display. A 2016 Scania R730 V8 6×4 tractor, towing a 2019 Faymonville semi-trailer. But instead of a big dozer, it now carries a Caterpillar 140M grader.
2016 Volvo FH tractor and 2022 Knapen moving floor semi-trailer. Truckstar is a Dutch road-transport magazine, launched in 1980. They use the semi-trailer for their tractor tests.
When you want to drive a heavy straight truck (> 7,500 kg GVWR), then you’ll have to pass the driving test in something like this 2015 DAF XF 440 FA box truck, owned by driving school Elgran.
Yet another Knapen moving floor semi-trailer, a 2019 K200, coupled to a Scania R520 V8 6×2/4 tractor from the same year.
2022 DAF XF 480 FT tractor with a Pacton 20ft shipping container carrier.
A close-up of the sign on the container. Obviously Van Kessel doesn’t only supply oil, diesel and gasoline.
DAF, Volvo and Scania. The dominators, not only at shows.
Next appointment: April 2024. Same address, I assume.
Thanks for sharing these photos. Love seeing trucks from around the world. Some very dedicated owners keeping the equipment in tip top shape.
You know me, I LOVE TRUCKS. Too many years of selling them. Thanks so much. By the way, did DAF fall in love with the Ford light-duty/medium duty can when they decided on the 1957 model depicted?
That conventional model was aimed at the “conservative” (conventional??) truck buyer, as DAF described it. DAF started to build trucks in the late forties, and right from the start, their full focus has always been on cabovers.
Over the years, I saw several of them with the cab of a coachbuilder (still quite common in the sixties), but this one has the factory cab with the wraparound windshield. I agree it must have been inspired by something from the US, just like our coaches from the fifties and sixties.
Love seeing these big rigs. Your articles are always a pleasure to read.
Thanks!
Looks a whole lot bigger than a “compact show”! Great pics, thanks.
Well, compared with, say, the also yearly held Truckstar Festival….
Until worldwide truck building conglomerates came into being, the only European trucks I recall seeing in my youth were L-series Mercedes straight trucks and trucks based on that Volvo F-10 cab. For whatever reason, the biggest market for the Volvo trucks was in trash collection and hauling. For a while there, every residential trash collection truck seemed to be a Volvo.
Former GMC and/or White trucks?
I really couldn’t say, but that F10 cab looks awfully familiar.
Interesting, as far as I know, that cab (introduced in 1977) was never used on anything in North America.
Love that old DAF. Its front end styling rather bridges two different eras, but why not?
Although I know very little about trucks I always enioy your posts about truck shows. They all look so well cared for. I do have a question about some of the newer trucks that seem to have very little ground clearance. Do they have some sort active suspension or are the Dutch roads that smooth?
Most especially Scanias lift to ride height when the ignition is turned on, there will be a remote ride height control beside the driving seat
Right, plus the fact that air suspended front axles have become common on top segment trucks and tractors. Stance as low as possible, certainly when on display at a show.
Another wonderful assemblage of big truck pictures, a pleasure to see them all. I’ve always been a big fan of the F10/F12, especially the Globetrotter variant, yet the new ones are just as impressive. There’s a lot that goes on with Euro-trucks that seems to not be a concern with ours over here, especially in regard to spray and splash control with all the wheels tightly enveloped with fenders and low hanging flaps as well as far better side and rear protection systems.
I guess a low curb weight -as low as possible- is utterly crucial in the US, given the much lower gross weight ratings, especially for semis. Full fenders, big (filled up to the gills) fuel tanks, chassis side-, rear- and top covers etc. all add weight, eating right into the payload capacity.
There is a EU regulation that was enacted in 2011 that mandates spray suppression to presumably a higher degree than in the US:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:034:0002:0028:en:PDF
…not to mention noise. European trucks and buses are shockingly quiet to American ears; industry in North America bleats and insists (and lobbies) that there’s just no feasible way to make them quiet, while elsewhere industry somehow magically manages to do it just fine.
And not just trucks. I’ve mentioned before the first time I went to Frankfurt and realised the periodic hushed whooshing I heard outside my hotel room window was a tram/streetcar turning a corner. Back home, such a train turning a corner involved (and still involves) hair-raising, ear-grating grinding and squawking.
And not just noise from trucks, either; also side underride guards. From the linked article (whose author is renowned as knowledgeable): The U.S. is behind other countries on this. “Side guards have been required since the 1980s in the European Union and Japan, and more recently in China, Brazil, and Peru”, says Volpe. (…) Evidently they work. “Based on studies conducted in the United Kingdom, side guards are an effective technology for reducing the number of vulnerable road-user fatalities and the severity of injuries, especially for bicyclists”, the overview says. “For example, in the UK, a 61% reduction in cyclist fatalities and a 20% reduction in pedestrian fatalities were reported in side-impact collisions with trucks following the national side guard mandate”.
(US industry, of course, struck up a grand chorus of “Not practicable, not cost-effective, we spend a lotta money on safety”, etc)
American trucks are very noisy and rough riding compared with Japanese or European trucks it makes them very tiring to drive plus the ergonomics in US brands is almost dangerous dozens of gauges spread all over the cab that you have to actually look closely at because normal temp or pressure reads differently for each gauge, the need to take your eyes off the road to do that isnt safe, Also headlights on American brand trucks are rubbish candles emit more useful light.
As a Canadian I am wondering about the red truck next to the 95 Peterbuilt.
Great photos as usual and I like learning about how it’s done in Europe compared to here. Thanks for these.
Must be this 2000 Peterbilt 379, Caterpillar powered, as seen last year. Maybe imported from Canada, or the owner has relatives/friends in Canada, something like that.
Thanks. Here is a truck I’ve seen around on Vancouver Island you may find int.eresting A Kenworth off highway self loading logging truck. I’ve been around coastal BC logging since the early 70’s and never seen anything like it. Not quite as well maintained as the older European trucks!
That’s a monument of a rig! Sizewise, we don’t have dedicated off-highway logging trucks like that in Europe. They’re all fully based on the regular models, wherever you go, and drive both on- and off-highway (into the forests).
Below an example, a Volvo FH 6×4 self-loading tractor, also carrying the rear tandem axle unit (behind the tractor in your picture).
Neither do we trucks get used where they are needed though log truck spec chassis are reinforced specifically for that role some people go cheap and dont spec them right and broken chassis on Mercedes Actros are getting more common as the wrong model gets used at 60 tonnes on dirt logging tracks.
The first thing that stands out is how low the ground clearance is on all these Euro highway trucks. Surely for aerodynamics but with cab over…
That’s not the ride height when rolling down the road, see comments further above.
I missed this first time around, so belated thanks for referring to me as a Peterbilt 362 expert. I did work as one member of the engineering team for a few years, over 40 years ago! The 362 was Peterbilt’s last successful full-size Class 8 cabover, but there was also the more aerodynamic 372, built in low numbers from the late ‘80’s to early ‘90’s. I’ve only seen a handful on the roads, though the once popular 362 is getting very scarce here in the western US. It’s fun to see one in Holland.
Thanks dman for chiming in! I remember reading about the 372 back then, but the 362 would be my preferred choice.
Many enthusiasts here who actually own an imported US classic go all the way, thus Kenworth and Peterbilt conventionals, ‘old school’ style.
Cabovers are mostly Mack F-series, imported as new tractors, back in the seventies (so they’ve always been here).
So that 1975 Peterbilt, is that an import from the US, or do you think they just added the Minnesota mudflaps as a kind of US tribute?
I love your euro-truck posts, and look forward to more in the new year!
The 359 was registered in NL in 2006, the 362 in 2015. So yes, both were imported long after their first registration as a new vehicle. They could be imported from anywhere, theoretically, but many US trucks/tractors (pickups included) come from Canada.
The mudflaps are spotless and seem to be fairly new, so added as a reference to the tractor’s homeland, indeed.
I would imagine those mudflaps are part of a ‘dress-up’ during the Pete’s restoration.
It is most likely an ‘import’ – IIRC, PACCAR did attempt to sell K-Whoppers in Switzerland (with limited success) but really, the trucks were unsuitable for Europe. Friderici was about the only major company that bought any.
DAF was linked to I-H back then and only became PACCAR in the 1990s.
So officially, No Petes in EU.
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