The two Swedish truck makers, Volvo and Scania have never really had a lot of success in the medium duty truck market in Australia.
This hasn’t been becaue the product is not good, but largely because Japanese makers have specialised in this sector and have produced cheaper trucks that have more appeal to the market.
The Vikings have always been more attractive as heavyweights but every now and then they mount another attack on the medium duty market as Scania has just done, albeit on a relatively small and targeted scale.
Scania used its annual media lunch to reveal a new 7-litre Euro 6 medium duty rigid, which it hopes will win its some niche sales in an environment where more companies are seeking out cleaner greener and safer trucks for corporate responsibility and citizenship reasons.
Under the cab is the smallest engine Scania has offered in Australia for many years and in fact it uses a Cummins designed block but with Scania ‘brains’. Scania says it uses its own turbo, manifolds, ECU and various other components.
The truck is aimed at urban, intra-urban and regional distribution and potentially in other areas including with councils and government departments seeking out its green and safe credentials.
Called the Scania DC07 the safety inclusions list steering wheel and side curtain rollover airbag protection and ABS/EBS7 disc brakes with Advanced Emergency Braking, among other things.
It also features front and rear air bag suspension as well as a quiet and clean engine and what it describes as “segment-leading” ergonomics and instrumentation, including in-dash weight scales readouts across all axle sets.
“We are widening the appeal of Scania’s product range to customers who have traditionally purchased lighter-duty trucks,” said Scania Australia’s director of truck sales, Dean Dal Santo.
“With our new engine family a key advantage is the fact that the 7-litre engine is 360 kg lighter than our 5-cylinder 9.0-litre as well as being significantly more economical,” said Del Santo.
“This combination will meet the growing requirement for sustainable transport by urban and regional operators in Australia, but the new format doesn’t mean we have made any concessions when it comes to typical Scania characteristics such as performance, robustness and uptime,” he added.
“These trucks offer all of Scania’s heavy-duty engineering, driveline efficiencies and safety benefits, optimised for lighter-duty roles, which are sure to draw new customers to the Scania family.”
“Scania’s 7.0-litre range also comes with our 5-year/500,000 km maintenance offer included with the purchase, a valuable and appealing operating costs bonus for operators large and small,” he added.
The six cylinder engine actually has a capacity of 6.7litres with max power of 280hp(206 kW) and max torque of 1,200 Nm (885 lb-ft) and uses SCR and DPF for emmision reduction.
It has a GCM of 26 tonnes and will be offered in 4×2, 6×2 and 6×4, with an 8×4 in development.
