First Class

On its debut in 1993, it’s easy to forget the momentous impact the FH had. Bob Beech hasn’t, so he’s delighted to drive for a week a version 1 FH16 520 restored by Volvo for the 25th anniversary of the FH model

- Bob Beech

One often hears the claim that trucks produced 25 to 35 years ago were better to drive, while many on social media drool over pictures of British trucks from the ’60s and ’70s and claim they would rather drive one in place of a modern truck. Do they really mean it? I dare say some of these people are too young to have had first-hand experience of this generation of trucks; I drove a number of them back in the ’70s and they were hard work – they made you tired and deaf.

Recently we had the chance to time travel, not as far back as the 1970s but to 1993, when the kind folks at Volvo Trucks UK loaned us, for a week, their prized 2001 version 1 FH16 520 4x2 tractor unit. This beautifully-presented old truck was bought and restored by the manufacturer for the 25th anniversary of the introduction, in 1993, of the FH range. Regular readers will recall that T&D editor Dougie Rankine spent a day behind the wheel of this vehicle last year.

Soon we were coupling up the old truck to an empty fridge trailer on a sunny Saturday morning. We took it for a gentle run down the M4/M5 to Bridgwater in Somerset to load a trailer for France and then took it back to the yard. The truck flew up every hill in top gear, hardly losing any speed. The old truck went so well we were seriously tempted to set off in it with another trailer in the yard loaded for Sweden and Norway, first drop Gothenburg, taking her back to where she was built!