Biglorryblog notes with more than a backward glance the placing of one of the largest single orders for Daf XF105 tractors to date in the UK from none other than James ‘The Lorry’ Irlam. Indeed, the company is taking no less than 115 of the tall, proud and haughty beauties as the sole make and model of its 2007 fleet replacement programme.
“The multi-million pound deal, sealed by the recent handover of six of the trucks at the Manchester premises of Chatfields DAF (pictured above), is said to support Irlam’s policy of maintaining a fleet of trucks less than three years old” says the PR blurb.
Note that ‘multi-million’ reference which no doubt will come as further succour to Paccar which is experiencing a rather tough time of things in the States—as indeed is every other US truck maker right now. And if you want to find out exactly what’s going on in the world manufacturing scene then BLB advises you to turn immediately to my blogging chum Mr Dixon’s excellent, if somewhat pithy, World Truck Blog on this website.
Meanwhile, I recently found myself pondering on whether or not Daf could maintain its stonking performance from 2006 when it was not only UK market leader…but also market leader in every sector it competed in. Some performance. Well the simple answer is, if you’re looking at just tractors, yes. According to my spies with the stats, for the total tractor market up until the end of June the runners and riders are as follows:
• Daf 1467 regs or 25.8% of the market
• Scania 1055 regs or 18.6%
• Volvo 933 regs or 15.4%
• MAN 818 regs or 14.4%
• Merc 647 11.4%
And within the tractor market Daf leads both 4x2 and 6x2 sectors…So this recent order from Irlams won’t have hurt their figures one little bit. And for the record the 115 XF105s for Irlams are all Space Cab FTG 6x2s with a 410hp MX engine and AS-Tronic autos. Some fleet machine…some fleet order.
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