1974 Scania L 110 Super And LBS 140 Super – Harking Back To The Late Fifties And Pointing The Way To The Future

In the sixties and seventies, the nomenclature of Swedish truck maker Scania (Scania-Vabis prior to 1969) was clear and uncomplicated: the letter L stood for a conventional truck or tractor with a 4×2 drivetrain and the LB was a 4×2 cabover.

Add the letter S and the vehicle had a 6×2 drivetrain with a liftable tag axle, whereas a T stood for a 6×4 chassis. ‘Super’ referred to a supercharged turbocharged diesel engine. And then of course there are the numbers on the side of the nose and on the grille of the cabover.

What we have here is an awesome 1974 Scania L 110 Super 4×2 tractor with a day cab. The last digit refers to the truck maker’s o-series, introduced at the end of the sixties, while 11 indicates the engine displacement in liters. In this case, with a maximum power output of 296 DIN-hp. The 11 liter inline-six was the biggest engine these conventionals ever got.

This line of classic -and classic looking- long nose models was originally introduced in 1958 as the Scania-Vabis L/LS/LT 75-series, which evolved into the improved and more powerful 1963 L/LS/LT 76-series.

In 1968, a year before truck maker Scania-Vabis merged with Saab (or SAAB), the heavy-duty Scania-Vabis conventionals were simply renamed Scania L/LS/LT 110, with or without Super power. Six years later, the whole interior got a serious update, especially the dashboard.

Now, over to one of the most celebrated heavy-duty truck models of post-war Europe, a Scania 0-series cabover with the 14.2 liter DS14 V8 turbodiesel, good for 350 DIN-hp (later on in the seventies 375 DIN-hp).

In full, this is a 1974 Scania LBS 140 Super 6×2 tractor with a sleeper cab. Initially, rectangular headlamp units were integrated in the bumper. From 1974 onwards, the round units as seen here were positioned above the bumper.

The hydraulically tilting cab of the 140 cabover was introduced on the 1968 Scania LB and LBS 110, it was designed by Englishman Lionel Sherrow. Well done sir!

Built with the challenging Swedish trucking conditions and more than 50 tonnes (110,000 lbs) gross combination weight in mind. Evidently, developing a lightweight chassis-cab wasn’t a priority.

Around 1960, the Scandinavian truck manufacturers, which included Sisu from Finland, already offered heavy trucks and tractors with a liftable tag axle -widely used up north- when the rest of the trucking industry barely knew the meaning of the adjective liftable. For the record, we’re talking about vehicles with steel suspension, not air suspension.

Let’s take a peek inside the tractor’s cab. Scania used the in-house GR860 10-speed synchronized transmission in their powerhouses of yore (interior pictures courtesy of Metropole Druten).

PS: one must never pass up an opportunity to listen to some DS14 V8 engines at full throttle.