Following the recent 'postfest' on Volvo's Globetrotter and Eurotrotter cabs, by way of an aside my man 'in the know' at Volvo (and a keen contributor to Biglorryblog) tells me that the drawbar rules tend to define the space of the European cab over designs. However, on the other side of the world in Australia the Aussies are far more relaxed about length limits for big trucks and consequently down-under they've got their very own 'bigger' Volvo FH Globetrotter which is based on the Gloebtrotter XL cab--but some 300mm longer and called the 'XXL' And here's one above---but to see the Globetrotter XXL is it's REAL 'Majesty' click though here now!!!
And what a beast this is! Behold Detour's Globetrotter XXL 520hp tractor with typically Aussie high air intakes (to get that clean fresh air vfree from bull dust) and twin exhausts too--having 'split' the downpipe from the 13-litre's sixpot's single exhaust manifold.
But what's really caught BLB's eye is the superb 'wing bling' on the 6x4 tractor which I understand will be used for roadtrain work. And why wouldn't you with 520 horses on hand?
VERRRRRY NICE! And "wing-bling"? I like that too!
Maybe a niche market in europe? There are a few longlines around it would make a good flagship for the FH16,it could be useful for double manning for the heavy haulage boys where length is not a problem.
Volvo Globetrotter XXL - what a truck! But dont think its all those clever Swedes in fact its the result of good ald Aussie ingenuity. The stretched cab was on the drawing board concieved by the then head of Volvo Truck - Patrick Stringer few years back along with a few other nifty changes for the Australian market. A little bird tells me that Stringer could not find support for this and a few of his other ideas and so secretly built a prototype with the help of friends at back of the Cab factory in Sweden and also built a localisied improved FH500 on a shoe string budget. The big cab is the only one to survive, Stringer along with a number of his other great ideas did not - a hard driving and action oriented leader from outside the truck industry Stringer gave the sleepy folks at Volvo marketing and engineering to much to think about and was encouraged to move on.
That XXL cab is nothing more than the combination of the smallest Northamerican sleeper 430 & the FH COE, I'd very much like to see the pairing of the FH with the 630 or even 730 sleeper, THAT would be an amazing flagship.
Unfortunately I've only seen this XXL on the Aussie Volvo site for the 2007 models, it's not in the '08 line-up, looks like the testballon crashed right away )-:
My dealer explained that the volvo's had a front axle weight restriction which meant that they could not us the U.S cabs which were much heavier- plus there were some reliability issues arsing from some tests that wer done in australia on the US cabs - remember that the highways in the US are a lot better than in Australia. I met that Stringer guy during their FH16 roadshowup North, he was very switched on to things, even though the Volvo product had a lot of problems in the market and still does. He almost convinced me to switch to cabover - lucky for the other brands he didnt hang around.