When presented with the opportunity to feature Northchill’s new Volvo FH16 750 Globetrotter XXL, we felt a sense of déjà vu. After all, in the fast-paced world of keeping the nation’s supermarket shelves stocked with life’s essentials, ensuring those runs are as effortless and comfortable as possible for the men and women behind the wheel makes sense.

There we were, standing at the Goodman Fielder Longburn dairy plant loading docks in Palmerston North, with real a sense of familiarity. We’ve been here before; a shiny big-cab Euro in Foodstuffs yellow, its quad-axle MaxiCube reefer in tow butted up to receive its payload for the night, and the name Northchill Ltd Pukekohe sitting discreetly on the side wall of the cab.

In fact, it was exactly four years ago that we featured Northchill’s two then-new DAF XF 530 Super Space Cab Euro-6 models – the first two to enter service locally. The new Volvo is a replacement for one of those big DAFs and while the run, the truck and the driver might all have changed since 2020, the main objective is still to ensure those runs are as effortless and comfortable as possible for the men and women behind the wheel five nights per week.

But before we depart for our run, let’s back up a little and explore the big-Euro-on-chilled-linehaul task in the world of Graham and Michelle Redington’s Northchill Group. A DAF replacement the Volvo may be, but both brands have a long association with the operation.

“The fleet currently stands at 37 trucks and 45 trailers. We only run Kenworth, DAF and Volvo,” says managing director Graham Redington. “Personally, I’d have a fleet of Kenworths – but you couldn’t get 37 guys here to drive them all … We have drivers here who love Volvos and this helps with driver retention.”

Of the current 37-strong fleet, 13 are Volvos, the oldest still on the job being a 2014 FH12. “We have one that’s done 1,700,000km. It’s our spare truck. We sold another at 1.7 million and never touched the engine.

“To be fair, they’re probably the pick of the Europeans. They’re good gear, not overly complicated,” Graham reiterates.

The timing and opportunity couldn’t have been better. Blair Stapleton, national fleet sales manager at Volvo Trucks New Zealand, happened to be sitting with a cancelled order on his hands. “Blair’s good, he’s been awesome,” says Graham. “We grabbed the truck. We still had the opportunity to change the colour at the factory; the timing was perfect.”

Truckies’ truckie, truckies’ company

Driver of Osiris, as the XXL was christened, is Marshall Howl, who’s spent two years in the 6×4 DAF on the Foodstuffs run but almost two decades on refrigeration (see page 29, Can’t keep a good man down).

“The DAF was coming up for replacement and they asked me what I want – I’ve never been asked, always just driven what I was given. I suggested the new DAF, but that wasn’t an option, and I didn’t want a Kenworth because I hate swinging off monkey bars to get into a cab … They’ve kept that American tradition and that’s all great, but the Volvos are so easy to get into with all your stuff. And I wanted another automatic because of my arm … From time to time, I’d drive old Western Stars, with a Roadranger direct into the gearbox, and it was hard on my injury,” says Marshall. (More of that injury in the sidebar!)

“As it turned out, this wasn’t an option, it just came up. Actually, this is the third XXL Volvo I’ve had. I had two of them at Cam Arnott, 520s, which was powerful back in the late 2000s,” Marshall says. “If I work to 65, I might have a couple more chances to get into a different brand!” he jokes.

As we stand with Marshall taking in the big Volvo’s unique details, it quickly becomes clear he and Northchill share the same approach to trucking.

“It’s a real truckies’ company with real trucking-minded people. Nobody there just drives a truck for a job,” comments Marshall. “I come to work, but this is my life. My passion is my truck, living on the road and achieving something – I can do my day’s work, wash my truck and know that I’ve moved a load from A to B, cleaned the truck and achieved something. Those are my two responsibilities – get my freight from A to B in a timely, professional manner and keep my truck clean and tidy – that’s all that’s asked of me.

“Back in the day, the trucks we looked up to were all clean; truckies had pride in the job. Washing the truck is the hardest part of my job. But that’s what I enjoy.”

The proof of that stands right in front of us. The truck is poised and spotless, ready for its daily grind. Atop the cab is the same set of LED spotlights that illuminated us to the power of modern lighting technology when we featured the DAFs. Below them is a painted sun visor, and below the windscreen, the normally black plastic section of trim that houses the Volvo badge has also been painted in matching yellow – a neat trick on the eye that gives the already big cab even more visual height. And it is a big cab …

Riding on a medium-height chassis and standing 3870mm tall, it actually doesn’t reach the greatest height of all FHs. However, the XXL has a visual bulk the others don’t, something extra that adds to its presence. It looks sleek, though, due in no doubt to the wide, neatly integrated cab side skirts and roof aerofoil.

On the chassis’ right sits the exhaust system and a stainless tank. At the left, there’s the AdBlue tank with a factory-optional stainless cover and Roadrunner toolbox behind. Adding an extra sense of ‘tidy’ to the whole look is custom black decking from the rear edge of the chassis rails all the way forward to the connector board.

The additional painting, lighting and fitting were all done in-house – as is maintenance across the whole fleet, by a full-time team of five led by workshop manager Derek McKenzie. “We try to be self-sufficient and pretty much do everything in-house. If a truck gets back in at 4am and something needs doing, we’ll get it done so that the driver is back in his truck for their next shift,” Graham later explains. “We run the Volvo Vcad diagnostic system in our workshop, which is a game-changer when problems do arise.”

Serve chilled, run hot

At the risk of preaching to the choir, our runs with Marshall are another reminder of how trucking exists to serve the needs of the people – for while they sleep, the overnight freight operations that move their daily essentials are only just kicking into high gear. Anyone who thinks there are a lot of trucks running the length of SH1 in the day would be surprised at what they’d see on an average evening camped somewhere along the route.

Marshall is one of four Northchill drivers permanently on the Foodstuffs north-south run. Monday nights are a shorter run north for Marshall, with a trailer swap at Turangi, while Tuesday to Friday sees two northbound and two southbound trucks passing in the night.

The Longburn dairy plant is the starting point of Goodman Fielder dairy products’ journey to a supermarket shelf near you. From the outside, the big Volvo sits patiently, but there’s a hive of activity inside the 15.5m MaxiCube reefer. The forklift whizzes in the first few pallet loads, Marshall sets the racking bars for the upper loads, and the process repeats over about 45 minutes until 20 tonne of chilled dairy product is ready for its overnight trip to Wiri.

With a combination tare of 21 tonne, it’s fair to say that the Volvo’s D16G powerplant with its 551kW (750hp) and 3550Nm is overqualified to shift 41 tonne gross. “Coming down from Auckland, we’re carrying only five to 10 tonnes. Definitely 10 on a Friday for the weekend,” Marshall says.

Seven-hundred-and-fifty horsepower for 41 tonnes, maximum … we burst out laughing. That’s 13.4kW (18.3hp) per tonne. For context, cast your mind back to the TSL FH16 700 stock unit we featured in June 2022, running at 50MAX and 10.4kW (14hp) per tonne. Even the Kiwitrans Series 4 FH16 600 from our February 2021 issue was running 8.9kW (12hp) per tonne at 50MAX.

Again, though, the truck’s arrival was one of pure chance, and Graham’s quick to rationalise the situation: “High horsepower isn’t a thing for us on these runs; we don’t need 750hp. Especially not for what Marshall’s moving. But, it just does it effortlessly and it won’t be using bugger all fuel…” (Early in the truck’s life, that figure is 2.17km/L.)

Besides which, it gives us one last opportunity to have a go in the big daddy of Volvo’s 16L range before it’s replaced by the incoming 17.3L D17 range. There’s no doubt the D16 engine range has done dutifully for the brand, and it’s definitely won a few fans along its 31-year lifespan. Yep, we bet you didn’t realise the D16A debuted back in 1993.

In 750hp guise, it really is a lovely device for forward propulsion. Power peaks between 1600 and 1800rpm, while max torque is on offer from 1050 to 1400rpm with a very gradual tapering off as max power takes over. In the realm of big-six Euros, it doesn’t quite have the same pleasingly deep ‘grumble’ as MAN’s 15.2L D38, but it’s barrel-chested in what one could describe as a typically Scandinavian way – refined purposefulness. At 70db, when under load, it offers up its own large capacity rumble accompanied by an enthusiastic turbo whistle.

Climbing the Taihape deviation, the 12-speed iShift progressively drops four ratios, allowing the revs to drop right down to around the 1000rpm mark each time. Speed drops to 46km/h in eighth gear, and with the motor in its stride, eighth holds our ascent with the EROAD speed readout ticking up again. By the time we reach 50km/h and 1800rpm, we’re just about at the summit, with no hint that hard work has really taken place. The iShift smoothly grabs another cog and we’re away again, back up to 90km/h before we know it, with the Desert Road in our sights.

Later, climbing the Hātepe Hill to Taupō, the Volvo drops to 56km/h at 1500rpm in ninth and again gets back into its stride as though it’s pulling off from a traffic light. And, with only 20,000km-odd under its tyres, there’s undoubtedly more in it yet.

“I leave the iShift in auto. They’ve come so far since the ones in the late 2000s that I was used to, where you’d have to hold it in manual. This truck pulls so well on the hills, and it holds the gears long enough for it to change up, and you carry on pulling,” Marshall says.

Big-cab comforts

“These big-power trucks are great for New Zealand. Our expressways are the closest we have to the motorways of Europe or the States. Otherwise, it’s all hills. Even Transmission Gully, it’s not an enjoyable drive, but it does save going around the coast,” Marshall comments. Our trip over ‘The Gully’ would come a couple of weeks later, when we’d join Marshall for one of his featherweight Auckland- Wellington-Palmerston North runs. Approaching Transmission Gully’s biggest grade, Marshall flicks the FH16 into power mode and gives the D16 a boot full. The iShift selects 10th for the climb and our speed briefly drops to 58km/h at 1300rpm, but for the most part, the climb is tackled at 61km/h at 1400rpm. Earlier, the Mangawekas were tackled at a similar 58km/h at 1200rpm, again in 10th.

Marshall’s truck is equipped with just the three-stage VEB+ compression exhaust brake, rated at 425kW (579hp). “Cruising around, I leave it in auto, and for tight, slow-speed bends like The Sisters or Bulli Point, I’ll set it on stage two. It’s strong enough to hold it in those situations. Stage three does grab,” he explains.

As we’ve experienced before, VEB+ operates quietly, barely breaking the night-time peace. On Transmission Gully’s steepest descent, it held a steady 90km/h in 10th at 1900rpm. Earlier, heading down the Taihape Divi, Marshall used a different approach to manage his speed, setting the downhill cruise at a comfortable 76km/h.

In addition, Marshall has at his disposal adaptive cruise control with forward collision warning and emergency braking. “The adaptive cruise is great driving through fog on the expressway. I just set it to max distance and cruise.” The FH is also fitted with lane departure warning and lane change support, which employs radar sensors at the left-hand side of the cab to check for vehicles in the blind spot. Marshall is a fan of the left-facing camera. Concealed in the mirror housing, it displays a wide-angle view down the side of the combination on the central infotainment screen.

“It’s magic. For example, you can watch you’re not going to drag your trailer rounding a kerb,” he says.

Also contributing to good visibility are the FH’s full LED headlights, which provide very good illumination. The LED spotlights ex-DAF are still as good at turning night into day as we remember them being. The job of night driving is made so much more relaxing when you can see properly … “I say, I’m living in the dark, why not have good headlights? It’s a wall of light from the LED spots,” Marshall comments.

The combination of a high cab, with its front spring and rear air suspension, and an average 66db noise level at cruise, means the FH remains one of the industry’s great mile-munchers. “It just cruises along great. You don’t know you’re doing 90,” Marshall comments.

It’s not all perfect, though, as he points out: “I could never hear the fridge motor start up in the DAF. I can in this. And I’m surprised how much firmer it is … it might just need more time to free up.”

But, still, a Series 5 FH Globetrotter XXL cab must be among the top of its class. You have the same 2100mm floor-to-ceiling height as the Globetrotter XL (150mm higher than the standard Globetrotter) and 2170mm interior width, but with 2200mm between the windscreen and rear wall (1950mm for the XL and Globetrotter), the cab is truly voluminous. It also means bed dimensions of 1065 × 2130 × 160mm, which enhances comfort on the two nights per week Marshall sleeps in it.

At his disposal, Marshall has a microwave, fridge/ freezer, telly, and six overhead compartments (with numerous other cubbies, pockets and trays dotted around).

We covered the Series 5’s redesigned cab fully in our June 2022 feature of TSL’s FH16 700 Globetrotter XL, so we won’t repeat ourselves too much here. Suffice to say, the Series 5 FH dash still looks fresh, clean and modern four years on from its introduction, with that same sense of being ergonomically designed and built of solid, quality materials. If one were to nitpick, you could say the cupholders are a bit of a stretch from the driver’s seat, and Volvo’s famous birdbath dashtop tray is take-it-or-leave-it – we’ve always loved it, but it’s the latter for Marshall.

XXL Globetrotter cab offers 2.1m height, 2.17m width and 2.2m depth for voluminous accommodation. Material fit and finish is top-notch, and the Series 5 dash is a great spot for the driver.

Too much of a good thing?

With many things in life, there’s always the question of how much is too much? Is an extra-large cab too much to act as a home on wheels just twice a week? Is 750hp too much to move 40-odd tonnes when 530 did the job previously?

And as with many things in life, the answers to those two questions are a matter of perspective. From the perspective of Northchill, smart, big-cab trucks that are comfortable for their drivers all the time are part of the image. From Marshall’s perspective, the ease with which the extra power enables him to maintain pace and complete an Auckland-Wellington-Palmerston North run without troubling the logbook takes the edge off and makes the job that much more enjoyable.

From the perspective of keeping supermarket shelves continuously stocked and the people of the nation fed and happy, the FH16 750 Globetrotter XXL fits in perfectly.

And, as a last jaunt with Volvo’s big 16L, we quite literally couldn’t have asked for more. As we said in that TSL test, “No matter how often you do it, revisiting the big bangers is always a thrill.” With the new D17 topping out at a Scania V8-beating 581kW (780hp) and 3800Nm, the thrill is set to continue.

Special thanks

Our sincere thanks to Graham and Michelle Redington for allowing us, once again, to feature one of their trucks and sharing the Northchill story. Thanks to Cory Knox and Steve Rowe for helping to organise the runs and clearing us with Foodstuffs and Goodman Fielder.

Thanks, especially, to Marshall Howl for letting us ride along, sharing your story so openly, and for your incredible enthusiasm during and after our time on the road. To Scott Robinson, Blair Stapleton and the team at Volvo Trucks New Zealand, many thanks for your ongoing support of New Zealand Trucking.

SPECIFICATIONS
Volvo FH16 750 6×4 – Globetrotter XXL