Owner operator and loyal Volvo customer Tony Gough is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of his transport business with the purchase of a very special, new Volvo FH-500 8×4 tipper. It is believed to be the first Globetrotter cabbed new-series FH 8×4 in the UK to be bodied as a tipper.
Tony, who operates the top-spec new FH in the livery of Midland Quarry Products (MQP), has been a Volvo customer for the whole of the twenty years he has run his own transport business.
His first Volvo was an FL10-320 8×4. “It was a good truck that served me well,” he says.
Since then, he has operated several FM-460 Globetrotter-cabbed 8×4 tippers, all on asphalt work. These proved a popular buy in the used truck market when the time came to sell them on and, says Tony, he could have sold the last one, which was on a 2011 plate, “twenty times over.”
His new FH operates out of the MQP coated stone plant in Wednesbury and also Clee Hill Quarry in Shropshire. The truck was supplied by Truck and Bus Wales & West and is to be maintained by Hartshorne Motor Services at Kingswinford.
Tony has invested a great deal of thought in customising the FH with a number of unique finishing touches. Like, for example, the polished stainless steel finishing strips down the rear edges of the cab side extenders. These were designed by Tony and set off by twelve, rearward facing LED lamps (six a side) which double as markers, indicators and extra brake lights.
Other personalised touches include the green LEDs in the Kelsa light bars and the custom cut, polished stainless steel door handle bezels. Stainless steel tool boxes, polished aluminium air tanks and a neat side guard arrangement complete the well thought out custom spec.
With average annual mileage forecast to be less than 30,000 kms, Tony is planning to keep the new FH for two years and admits he already has a buyer for it at that time. When work is busy, Tony’s wife and business partner Lisa drives the truck on the night shift.
Typically, deliveries are carried out within a one hour drive of the plant. Much of the job involves tipping asphalt into paving machines at roadworks, including many in urban areas. This entails a great deal of stop-start driving where the I-Shift automated gearbox is a major boon, he reports.
The fully-fuelled tare weight of the truck, which is fitted with a B-Ride rear suspension, Bulkrite body, Dawbarn sheet and Edbro CX14 tipping cylinder, is just under 13,000 kgs, resulting in a payload of 19,000 kgs.
By specifying a higher diff ratio of 2.83:1, Tony reports that the 13-litre D13K500 engine installed in the FH, which is an on-road N3 spec tipper, is turning over at 1200 rpm at 90 Km/h. “The faster diff ratio keeps it in the green band and the I-Shift changes up at lower revs with no loss of torque. I’m expecting the FH to be returning up to 8.5 mpg. Considering most of our work is stop: start and in urban areas, that is good compared to the overall average for my three previous Volvos which was 7.2 mpg.”
