CAB OF E-XXL-ENCE
IT IS, IN EVERY SENSE, an extremely long haul from the cloistered corridors of Volvo world headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, to a few random moments parked on one of those old World War II airstrips that run alongside the Stuart Highway on the outskirts of Darwin.
In this case, however, it also marks a journey of remarkable resilience and unwavering determination by a group of Volvo realists advocating something special for a truly special market. Our market. Australia!
Obviously enough, this is the story of the Volvo XXL Globetrotter cab and, sure enough, it starts in Sweden. But not, perhaps, quite as routinely as you might think.
As good fortune would have it, in the back half of 2012 I was one of only two Australian truck writers invited to be part of a thousand-strong audience of high-end customers and media types flown in from many parts of the world for the glitzy, big budget unveiling of Volvo’s new FH generation.
No question, this was a big deal for Volvo. Massive! The new model’s predecessor had been a stellar success almost from the day it first broke cover in 1994 and everyone knew this new generation would need to be good, very good, if it was to build on the success of a range being superseded at the peak of its powers.
Even so, first impressions of the new models were hugely favourable. In fact, it didn’t take long to start thinking this new truck was not only good enough to pick up where its predecessor left off, but critically, also good enough to win even more business for the Swedish conglomerate.
For starters, the cab was heaps bigger,
