Deals on Wheels #464

Classic DEALS
Out of step
So, now to the medium-duty contenders,
starting with a not-so-honourable mention
of Hino’s horrible KL model. While Isuzu
was changing the way Australian operators
thought about Japanese trucks, the KL
seemed to be doing its darnedest to keep the
British in business.
And speaking of British, the hands-down
winner of the worst medium-duty model
goes to the original Ford Cargo. Actually, it’s
hard to decide whether it was the worst or
simply the most disappointing. Probably a big
slice of both.
Either way, Cargo came here in the early
1980s with high expectations as Europe’s
newly crowned ‘Truck of the Year’ but almost
immediately revealed severe shortcomings
in most areas, most notably build quality.
It leaked like a bottomless bucket. Woops,
nearly forgot, it also had woefully bad
wedge brakes.
Ford was a big player in the Australian truck
business back then and this young scribe’s
test report in Truck & Bus did not go down
well. ‘Great Expectations … But Not Quite!’
wasn’t quite the heading Ford was hoping for,
leading to a delegation of senior executives
baying for blood and resorting to their
greatest weapon, the advertising budget.
Fortunately, Truck & Bus founder and
publisher Frank Shennen stood firmly by his
somewhat cocky young staff writer, though a
verbal reminder of who pays the bills wasn’t
lost in translation.
Made in China
Whatever, a long and wonderful career
could’ve ended right there, and that would’ve
been a great shame because I would not have
had the chance to experience the worst truck
to ever hit the Australian market. Bar none!
So folks, here it is, recipient of not only
the worst light-duty workhorse but also the
most woeful truck to ever grace our shores –
China’s JAC.
Launched in mid-2012, JAC’s entry to the
Australian market was the brainchild of
an entrepreneurial group who, with some
justification, saw a highly lucrative future
for a Chinese truck with a good spec and an
incredibly attractive price tag.
What they seemed to forget though,
was that the Australian market expects
trucks to be of a particular standard.
To be blunt, JAC was a true shocker with
the worst and potentially dangerous
on-road manners of anything before
or since its arrival.
It still beggars belief that someone in the
group actually gave the truck the go-ahead to
tackle our market in the form it was presented.
Gratefully, there are no bad trucks anymore.
Sure, some are better than others, some last
longer than others, and even today some are
still sold into the wrong applications. But as
for a genuinely dud, horribly designed truck,
they don’t really exist anymore.
And for this we should all be immensely
grateful. Personally, I’m not sure I could
survive another bout with some of them.
Kenworth’s K300 was
earmarked for local
delivery work. Photo
from the book
Kenworth Making
History
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