Autobots, Let's Roll Out

Cars of recent have evolved out of their primitive shell, not limited to doing the simple chore of ferrying people from point A to B. They are flavourful, fanciful to say the least, and come packed with a myriad of gadgetries, some even beyond our wildest dreams.

Hot and super fast cars such as McLarens and Lamborghinis are not just brutally quick in pace, but offer grand entrances with their slick sheet metals and unique door mechanisms. You could almost be sure that they will steal jealous glances from passersby.

In comparison, it seems that trucks - the stronger and more beefed up cousins - lead much simpler and less glamorous lives. For starters, they are nowhere as sexy and are, hence, less desirable. More importantly, fewer people can closely relate to trucks than cars. Most of us grew up with a dream car. Dream trucks? Not that we have heard of.

Trucks are also often seen as ordinary, run-of-the-mill tools that are created solely for carrying bulky items. The closest they have attained idolism, perhaps, was when Optimus Prime (the lead in Transformers) took the form of a prime mover.

But things took a change when we had the chance to get up close and personal with one of them, or more specifically, the Volvo FH Series. And our experience wasn’t limited to just 'see-and-touch' (like what we normally do at showrooms or motor shows). We actually got to drive one of the 28-tonne trucks around a pre-designed circuit.

Up close, the FH looks no less daunting despite being fitted with a lower cab setting. And climbing into the cabin is a challenging task - especially for the dainty ladies - considering the manoeuvre is nowhere as elegant as climbing into a super sports car.

What's elegant for a truck, though, is the slew of features that totally resembles those in cars. On top of LED daytime running lights, the Volvo FH is also fitted with adaptive HID headlights that swivel to illuminate road bends ahead. How cool is that?


Those aside, our 'virgin encounter' with the truck was, quite on the contrary, a delightful experience.

As you can imagine, seated three metres off the ground makes for easier judgement to keep all of those eight wheels in lane and out of the kerb around corners. The commanding sitting position will also make you feel like the 'king of the road', especially when everything else looks so minuscule in comparison.

You would also have expected a vehicle of this size to be clumsy and heavy footed. But to our surprise, the FH's steering feels feather-light, so much so that you are able to steer with a single hand without much effort.

Also, the FH's cockpit feels instinctively car-like. The switches are where we expect them to be and so are the control panels, which take on a driver-oriented posture.

Volvo is also the first heavy duty truck maker with a dual-clutch transmission. Yes, the gearbox found in the FH is conceptually the same as the one in the Golf GTI, only that it is now made much stronger to deal with the monstrous torque - 2,600Nm in this case. That's the equivalent of three and a half X5 M50ds, one of the 'torque-iest' cars in the market now.

Though brief, the drive in the FH is nothing quite like what we imagined, and definitely a huge step ahead of the trucks we knew of yesteryears. So the next time when you see a truck rolling on the next lane, take a closer look for it may be light years in technologies ahead of your cranky, stick shift ride.