IN VIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA -March 1, 2005

Tuesday, March 1st 2005
11:05 AM

In view of recent developments in Southern Africa, regarding the hardening attitude towards left hand drive H.G.V.’s (Heavy Goods Vehicles) operating in predominately R.H.D. countries, we at Mammoth Trucks BC Ltd. have decided to give our customers what effectively is a ‘custom engineered’ pre-owned truck, which combine the attributes of both a European cab design with a North American power train.
Nothing new really – except for new trucks, ERF, Foden, Liaz, Seddon-Atkinson etc have done this for years. However for a used truck this has not been economically viable as the cost of conversion to R.H.D. on a C.O.E. North American truck is very expensive (we know because we are
Converters) which effectively add from 30% to 50% of the initial purchase price to the converted vehicle. Much too high! this takes the "cherry" off the North American (truck) "pie", leading to truckers rushing to the U.K. to buy R.H.D. horses from Mercedes Benz, MAN, Volvo, Scania, et al – but the negative side is 4x2 or 6x2 configurations! – Not 6x4 which legally is the only acceptable form of providing traction ‘and’ weigh bridge conformation. So what’s our solution? Take an N14 or S-60 powered conventional (bonneted) day cab from suppliers (International, Freightliner, Kenworth, Volvo, Ford, Sterling, etc.) and install a good used European R.H.D. cab.
All Engineering work will be done in North America and the client will receive a "ready to haul" truck. Donor chassis will be within model years 1996-2000 (last year of N14)