The 2023 edition of the Truckstar Mack & Speciaal Transportdag in the Netherlands was held on October 8. After a whole series of show reports, it’s time for the finale. Heavy-duty Volvo tractors and impressive Nooteboom trailers rule the event, those manufacturers are also the market leaders here in the absolute top segment of road transport. Let’s roam the wide, military terrain once more.
2020 Volvo FH16-650 8×4/4 tractor, sans raised sleeper cab roof.
2016 MAN TGX 41.560 8×4/4 tractor with a 2022 Broshuis semi-low loader. The Broshuis company also builds the latest battle tank transporters for the US Army.
2009 Volvo FH16-660 10×4*6 tractor with a serious Palfinger knuckle boom crane. It’s a tractor alright, that short flatbed with dropsides is detachable. The fifth wheel coupling is hidden underneath the bed.
A fully overhauled, 1995 Nooteboom ADBAN-96 low loader trailer is coupled to the Volvo. Such full trailers -with a history dating back to 1975- were once widely used for transporting big, weighty machinery and equipment. So that little Caterpillar doesn’t need to worry about anything.
2019 Volvo FM 8×4/4 tractor, towing an extendable, 2018 Nooteboom 3-bed-6 low loader. The classic moving truck (Verhuizingen), a 1965 DAF A1600 DD490, is getting a free ride.
Brand spanking new, this Volvo FH16-750 8×4/4 tractor.
How do you want your Nooteboom? Longer, wider, or both?
Also present, this trio of recent Scania XT Gryphus military vehicles. From left to right: 4×4 (450 hp), 6×6 and 8×8 (both with 500 hp).
All of them are powered by Scania’s 12.7 liter, inline-six turbodiesel. By the way, you’ll get no results whatsoever when checking the Scanias’ license plates on our official RDW-website. Because military.
For comparison, here’s a civil Scania 8×8, a G500 XT dump truck with a legal GVWR of 39 tonnes (85,980 lbs).
The XT-series is Scania’s vehicle range for on-/off-road transport. Some direct competitors are the Volvo FMX, Mercedes-Benz Arocs, Iveco T-Way, and the DAF XDC/XFC.
2017 Volvo FH16-750 8×4/4 tractor with a 2006 Nooteboom dual-axle jeepdolly and five-axle low loader. On its bed, a Liebherr all-terrain crane.
2013 Volvo FH16-750 6×2 tractor and a LinTrailers semi-low loader. I have a hunch that the cargo is an offshore equipment container.
2019 DAF XF 530 FTG 6×2/4 tractor with a 2020 Broshuis, carrying a Komatsu PC240LC tracked excavator.
Truck maker DAF doesn’t go beyond 530 hp, though a 660 hp, Cummins powered DAF XG+ tractor has been available in Australia since last year.
A monster of an Effer knuckle boom crane, mounted on a 2018 Volvo FH 10×4*6 tractor.
The 85 tonnes, 2021 Nooteboom semi-low loader is doing a push-up.
2022 Nooteboom extendable flatbed semi-trailer, type OVB-48-03(V). Barely visible in the background, the 2015 Scania R450 6×2/4 tractor.
2022 Volvo FH 6×2/4 tractor with a pair of Goldhofer semi-low loaders. Goldhofer is one of those highly-reputed heavy haul trailer specialists, besides Nooteboom, Broshuis, Faymonville, Scheuerle, and Doll.
This is how wheeled or tracked machinery could get on and off the bed of a low loader, way back in the day. The Toyota forklift is a more recent commercial vehicle for sure.
Many of last year’s participating road jumbos are on the move in this YouTube-video by The Spotting Channel. Well, that’s another quarter of an hour well-spent.
Without doubt, this 2023 event was one of the very best and most interesting truck shows I ever visited. And to think it was already the 42nd edition…
Thanks again for great information on European trucks and how they are used.
Gee can you imagine how many batteries it would take to power one of these if they were Americanized
How’s that?
Thank you for all this. Always loved big rigs and drove a few back in the prehistoric days of no automatics and cab overs. Love to see what Europe is doing with trucks. Noticed they still make COEs. They’re beauts, too!
You’re welcome!
As for ‘they still make COEs’, the truck makers here haven’t built conventionals for years now.
The norm these days for heavy and powerful trucks is an automated manual transmission. That includes crawler gears and dedicated software for the heavy haul tractors. The most powerful trucks and tractors aren’t even available with a manual any longer.
Before that, synchronized manual transmissions, up to the famous and widely used ZF 16-speed. In Europe, crash gearboxes went the way of the dodo decades ago.
As an aside, Volvo, Scania, and Mercedes-Benz built their own transmissions.
I guess I am too old fashioned. I believe that a truck, is a truck, is a truck. Here we have a lot of tarted up trucks. Is that really necessary to their ultimate function which is to move goods or move something heavy? No, I don’t believe so. One thing I know for sure is all that fancy detail work up front and those uniquely styled headlights sure will make for a big bill when damaged. Give me a round or square headlight that costs under a $100 then these varied shapes that are over a $1000.
Confirmed, you’re too old fashioned. These tarted up trucks go way, way over 220,000 lbs gross weight. With maximum comfort and convenience from a driver’s point of view.
Feel free to show me some road-legal, ‘old school’ alternatives.
You misunderstood me. Tarted up means what has been done to the exterior. I am all for creature comforts but that is relegated to this inside. Both the front ends of cars and these trucks included aren’t designed for ease of replacement nor it’s cost. Below is a far less expensive head light to replace compared to some of those trapezoidal shapes. If these are “old school” as you call them, an unfortunate naming convention, I am all for them.
As a regular night truck driver those European lights actually work those horrid round glow worms fitted to US brands are just junk.
Be it round, square, oval, or oblong has no bearing as it is the bulb type inside that determines the light. I’m quite sure Daniel Stern could give quite the lesson on what is approved in Europe, what is approved in the U.S., and all the different bulb types out there.
LED lighting, nowadays.
Nice pictures! Sure do like those Scania 4×4’s, 6×6’s and 8×8’s!
As a matter of fact, this was the first time I saw AWD Scanias myself!
The brand is a (very) minor player in the civil AWD heavy-duty trucking market here.
When strictly looking at off-road capabilities, nothing can beat a Tatra Phoenix (with DAF engines and cabs). The Belgian Army opted for those, renamed DAF CF Military, an 8×8 is pictured below.
Ok, I get Europe does cabovers, for reasons. But looking at them they all look like the driver would be at best straight up, I mean straight up in the seat, 100% vertical backrest. Not that I’m a truck driver, but that would not work for me. Not at all. Tell me it ain’t so, it just looks that way?
Sitting straight up is the best. I can drive 12-13 hours in my Promaster van, whose high and upright seating is just like a truck. I can’t nearly do that in my wife’s TSX, where I feel like I’m practically in a dentist’s chair.
To each their own, but I can assure you that upright seating is used widely in work situations where people have to sit for long hours.
You can adjust both the seat (air suspended, with automatic driver’s weight adaptation) and the steering wheel to any possible position, exactly how it’s ergonomically best. To a much greater extent than is possible in any (form of a) car.
Strictly from a driver’s POV, a car is a rather pathetic device, compared to a modern, heavy truck/tractor. Rightfully so, of course, as a truck is a full-time workplace. On a related note, you’d better come up with something really nice and comfy these days, otherwise you won’t find a professional driver to work with it.
Regarding ‘Europe does cabovers’. Actually, the whole world does cabovers, apart from North America and, only partly, Australia and NZ.
‘Cabovers are a European thing’ seems to be a tough nut to crack.
Wanna sit vertical? drive a US day cab they are very cramped and uncomfortable, US horsepower used to be the ticket in days of yore, not anymore, Euro comfort and ease of driving is where its at now, you can do your 14hr shift and get out feeling fresh rather than wrung out and partly deaf