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Deals on Wheels #464

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Classic DEALS<br />

I<br />

n time, some trucks become classics.<br />

Others d<strong>on</strong>’t, but that doesn’t<br />

necessarily mean they were duds.<br />

No, the real duds are those shockers<br />

that take <strong>on</strong> a heritage all their own.<br />

Remembered, you might say, for all the<br />

wr<strong>on</strong>g reas<strong>on</strong>s.<br />

So now, with the pandemic providing<br />

a little too much time to think about<br />

the past rather than the present, and<br />

enough experience to recount the makes<br />

and models that have maintained a<br />

deservedly dark and critical crevice in this<br />

commentator’s cranium, here are a few<br />

carefully c<strong>on</strong>sidered lesser lights from the<br />

commercial vehicle vault.<br />

I must stress, however, these opini<strong>on</strong>s are<br />

my own and I accept there may be those<br />

with an opposite view of these maligned<br />

machines. But somehow, I doubt it. On the<br />

other hand, there may be those who have<br />

their own tortured memories of trucks they<br />

c<strong>on</strong>sider even worse than those menti<strong>on</strong>ed<br />

here.<br />

Funny thing though, it’s probably much<br />

easier to define a dud truck than a good<br />

truck.<br />

Like, after more than 40 years writing<br />

about trucks and road transport I’m<br />

sometimes asked: “What’s the best truck you<br />

reck<strong>on</strong> you’ve ever driven?”<br />

Quite seriously, there’s no easy answer to<br />

that because so much depends <strong>on</strong> the job<br />

and even the era. For instance, how could you<br />

rate a big banger pulling three or four trailers<br />

through the heat and heavy sand of Western<br />

Australia’s pindan country to the demands of<br />

a slick interstater notching big distances up<br />

and down the east coast or across the transc<strong>on</strong>tinental<br />

paddock?<br />

Or a comparis<strong>on</strong> between a modern<br />

medium-duty truck with its swathe of<br />

safety systems and creature comforts, and a<br />

machine like Isuzu’s remarkable SBR: a very<br />

basic model by today’s standards but <strong>on</strong>e that<br />

did more to put Japanese trucks <strong>on</strong> the map in<br />

this country than any other?<br />

No, ‘the best truck’ questi<strong>on</strong> has no easy<br />

answer at all. A questi<strong>on</strong> with much easier<br />

The JAC, imported<br />

from China in 2012,<br />

came with a cheap<br />

price tag<br />

The Leyland Marath<strong>on</strong><br />

failed to live up to<br />

expectati<strong>on</strong>s.<br />

Photo courtesy of<br />

Wikimedia Comm<strong>on</strong>s<br />

125

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