From the late eighties to the mid-nineties, the Scania 3-series with a 14.2 liter V8 was the most longed-for new heavy truck in Europe. Three decades later, it has reached an almost legendary status in the trucking world. Just mentioning ‘143’ is enough, no further explanation needed.
The Scania 143 is still a common sight at truck shows and events these days. Most of them come in the form of a 4×2 tractor, so spotting a straight truck with a classic 6×2 drivetrain was a welcome change.
The truck maker’s 3-series was introduced in 1987 and can be best described as a successful update of their 1980 2-series (with a cab design by Giugiaro). It consisted of the 93, 113, and 143 cabover and conventional models; these were powered by an 8.5 liter inline-6, an 11.0 liter inline-6, and a 14.2 liter V8 (the latter up to 500 DIN-hp), respectively.
As the factory image above already indicates, Scania is known for their modular system. The Swedes offer a full, in-house range of cabs, powertrains, and chassis. Speaking of which, the letters M, H, or E on the grille refer to a Medium-duty, Heavy-duty, or Extra-heavy-duty chassis.
Of course, the truck maker’s 14.2 liter V8 turbodiesel with individual heads -in the form of 8 V’s- contributed a lot to the desirability of the 143, whether it was mounted in an R-cabover or under the hood of a T-conventional. (cutaway drawing of a Scania DSC14 engine by Hans Julér)
But there was more.
Like Scania’s high-grade cab interior. In its day, this was the ultimate workplace for professional truck drivers. You simply felt privileged when sitting in this cockpit.
When many truck dashboards in Europe still looked like a canted shoebox, or a slight variation thereof, Scania came up with this design. Keep in mind that the full name of the vehicle manufacturer was Saab-Scania AB back then.
Four years after the introduction of the 3-series, the Streamline aero-package became available as an option. Clearly a harbinger of things to come across the whole European cabover board.
The differences between the Streamline version and the original 3-series Topline sleeper cab are all too obvious. Take those three fully exposed steps, for example; non-existent these days.
Back to Van der Heijden’s Blue Horse. The 420 DIN-hp truck is equipped with a cable roll-off hoist and is rated at a gross weight of 25.5 tonnes (56,200 lbs). And that’s quite a fuel tank, by the way.
As it’s sitting here, the Scania -fitted with a trailer coupling- can be used as an end dump truck or as a flatbed truck. With a lifted tag axle, it drives and turns like a 4×2 straight truck with a long rear overhang.
In a not so distant past, there was another 3-series with a V8. But those specialties don’t run on diesel fuel.
Whats with the two gear shifts on the dashboard??? Im assuming manual transmission was still the usual spec in Europe in the late 80s/90s. All trucks were manual in the USA at the time.
Stuff like a spicer aux box and the 2nd shift lever were very uncommon and kind of a relic at that time except maybe in heavy haul applications. If you wanted more gears most guys specced an eaton fuller 18 speed, which was a hell of a lot easier to use.
I guess you mean the two brake levers on the dasboard.
Synchronized manuals were the norm, back then. In-house Scania transmissions, in this case.
trailer brake controller on the steering column gearshift and parking brake next to each other, parking brake is applied, these were nice trucks to drive, Ive only driven the M version
Gearshift is next to the driver’s seat, click on interior-from-above picture.
actually its not,
Alrighty, you asked for it.
Strange its not the model I drove I liked the dash mounted shift all good.Ive driven too many different Scanias now its all very familiar but not, and that 12 speed isnt the best feature.
“Keep in mind that the full name of the vehicle manufacturer was Saab-Scania AB back then.”
That’s true. However, one should be careful not to overvalue the group’s name, especially the first part.
SAAB-Scania AB was an industrial conglomerate that was only merged in 1969. Previously, SAAB (cars) and Scania-Vabis (trucks) were independent companies. In addition, there were also the aviation, military, and aerospace divisions.
The split began as early as 1990, with the car division being separated from the group and run as an independent company.
The final split took place in 1995:
Scania AB became an independent company.
Saab AB refocused on defense and aviation.
The 3-Series was, so to speak, the last breath of the old SAAB-Scania AB. However, by this time, the car manufacturer SAAB had long since left the company (half a decade !)
That dash must have been developed somewhere in the mid-eighties, given the introduction of the 3-series in 1987.
Anyway, the Scania dash is sending me contemporary Saab vibes, so to speak.
“…Scania is known for their modular system”.
It’s a clever Swedish thing, but it can go awry. I once bought a modular kitchen from IKEA, but when I assembled it at home, it became a really small version of that Scania 93M. That cabin was indeed nice, but good as it was, there was really nowhere to cook. I took it back, of course. Actually, I drove it back, but I’m digressing.
That blue truck seems to have enormous load capacity for what appears to be a fairly short tray. Hard to think of what might weigh so much to fit into that space (beyond weird one-offs like, say, a transformer or something). Clearly used, though: the tank attests to pretty high fuel use, I’d reckon.
Just imagine you had ordered a Scania 93M which turned out to be a Billy, after assembly at home.
The Scania’s legal maximum payload capacity is 14.8 tonnes. Length doesn’t say much about weight. Dump trucks and concrete mixer trucks are always relatively short, yet they’re darn heavy, when fully loaded. I’m thinking this would be an ideal truck to haul a good load of brick pavers.
by volume wet shingle wet sand or concrete are the heaviest things you can load, on board scales help, Scanias have built in scales as part of the air suspension as do Volvos.
Legal load is well short of the coaming rail Justy, with 9 tons of wet grapes and a tarp over the top you need to be very very smooth and drive without using the brake, first grape season I did was in one of these but a 8 wheeler rigid, the only bulk trucks ever driven that were loaded to the top were on rubbish to landfill but we had 60 tonne permits, 8 wheel trucks pulling 5 axle walking floor trailers, we had a couple of 500 V8 Scanias pulling quad axle semis but at only 44 tonnes and they struggled.
What a beauty!
A truck from the 90s, and it’s a Scania, you couldn’t ask for more.