Inspired solutions by vehicle operators – and vehicle manufacturer innovations that defy boxed-in conventional thinking – have a rich history well worth celebrating. Admittedly, this has been less apparent in recent times due to the tightening stranglehold of bureaucrats-know-best legislation.
Happily, for those who lament the enormously varied types of commercial vehicle that characterised earlier times, the quest to eliminate CO2 emissions is driving a renaissance in automotive engineering creativity. (And no more so than the development of hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engines and fuel cell units).
A standout example of inspired outside-the-box thinking was the recognition by YCF (Yacimientos Carboníferos Fiscales), Argentina’s former State-owned coal mining organisation. In the late 1940s, YCF reached to conclusion that it needed to replace more modern trucks with a seriously obsolete, out of production, vehicle type.
Until WW2, Argentina was heavily reliant on coal imported from South Wales. Alternative sources became imperative. In 1943, YCF established a new mine in Rio Turbio, situated in Argentina’s bleak, sparsely populated far south.
Coal was being hauled by a fleet of gasoline-engined US trucks 160 miles from the mine to the port of Rio Gallegos, on Argentina’s South Atlantic seaboard. From Rio Gallegos the coal was shipped northwards to Buenos Aries and other main population centres.
The problem was threefold. Shortage of gasoline, vehicle unreliability compounded by shortage of spares – and the realisation that the trucks’ fuel consumption exceeded the energy value
