For years, British operators had struggled with very low powered trucks. When the gross weight in the UK was 32½ tons, many operators ‘limped on’ with 180-200hp engines, and anything above 200hp was a luxury for many. The 1970s saw more power come from abroad and UK manufacturers slowly caught up.
By the early 1980s, there were several 300hp-plus engines, but they initially sold in smaller numbers but that changed in 1983 when the GVW for the UK went up to 38 tons, in line with much of Europe.
That led to new models with higher power but still 280-300hp was quite often the norm. However, bucking the trend were Scania and Volvo, which developed higher powered larger engines for their homeland Scandinavian
