Page 12 - issue-78

DAF 3300 vs New XF
BACK IN THE HEYDAY
GETTING BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A DAF 3300 ATI BROUGHT BACK MEMORIES OF THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN DRIVING A TRUCK WAS A PROPER JOB. WITH ITS SPACECAB THIS TRUCK WAS IDEAL FOR THE LONG HAUL AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE ROAD HAULAGE INDUSTRY SHOULD NOT BE OVERLOOKED.
Kevin Swallow reports
It’s well documented that in the early through Leyland’s factory carrying aming The road to the 3300
19th century a group of English textile workers and weavers destroyed weaving machinery. They feared that the time they’d spent learning their craft would be wasted as new machines would replace
them, leaving them redundant.
Today, the term ‘luddite’ has become
synonymous with anyone opposing automation, computerisation or new technologies. It’s something not lost on today’s truck drivers as technological experts scramble to build driverless trucks that will eventually put them out of work.
While its unlikely truck drivers will rampage 12 CVDriver September 2018
torches and setting light to automated welding robots, it should not go unnoticed that the industry is being deskilled.
These days, lorry drivers only have to engage ‘drive’ on the transmission and then merely steer the truck between inanimate (and avoid animate) objects. Lane departure warning systems, hill assist and option to transfer weight to the drive axle for traction; a few hours behind the wheel of an all-new high-tech DAF XF540 that has these added extras before swapping to a 28-year-old 3300 ATi serves as a case in point.
Sat waiting for me at the Redmoss Truckstop, just up the B7078 from M74 J13, were both trucks ahead of a day driving across Lanarkshire. First, the retro-classic. Launched in 1973, the 2800 range (with F241/2.41m wide cab) replaced the 2600 range, built from 1962 to 1974. This was augmented in 1982 by a new agship, the 3300, with production of F241 models ultimately lasting until 1995.
With this distinctive livery as its launch colours, the rst incarnation of SpaceCab arrived in 1984. The much anticipated 95 was still some way off and DAF needed