Torque of the town: the gas-powered era of road haulage is under way By Lee Gale
Just 30 minutes by rail out of London’s Fenchurch Street you will reach Basildon in, what is often termed, ‘deepest, darkest Essex’. It’s a new town that was developed after the Second World War to accommodate the capital’s population overspill, an idea which, some say, ought to be revisited today. It is by
Iveco New Stralis NP tractor 4x2 LNG Cylinders: 6 Total displacement: 8,700cm3 Power: 400hp Torque: 1,700 Nm
no means a salubrious district but the inhabi
LNG tank capacity: 540 litres left side, 540 litres right side
tants are fond of their cars, especially high-
Autonomy: 1,500km (930 miles)
performance models. Immediately surrounding
www.iveco.com
the rather raggedy Eastgate shopping precinct lies a sprawling housing estate and there, parked along its quiet thoroughfares, you will
The UK headquarters of CNH Industrial lie
spy an inordinate amount of privately-owned
beyond the boulevards of spoilers and chrome
registrations. A preponderance of beefed-up
alloys on the A1235 Crane Farms Road which,
vehicles have plates starting with MI55 and
for all intents and purposes, is a dragstrip. On
BO55, suggesting many unmarried women
foot, it is a life-in-your-hands dash across this
and entrepreneurs.
dual carriageway to reach the comparative safety of the sizeable CNH compound with its
v The first Iveco New Stralis NP arrived at Iveco’s UK headquarters in late January. The engine of this particular vehicle, the 8.7-litre Cursor 9 Natural Power Euro VI, runs on LNG.
rows of gleaming tractors and trucks. There are 12 brands within the CNH umbrella: the tractors are New Holland; the trucks, Iveco. It is an exciting time for the latter commercial-vehicle manufacturer. The first right-hand drive Iveco New Stralis NP (NP: natural power) truck has just arrived in the UK, still on test plates, and International Gas has been invited for a spin. Gas-propelled trucks are, of course, nothing new. In fact, Iveco has been producing naturalgas commercial vehicles for over 20 years but the Italian firm is particularly perky about its long-haul New Stralis NP, featuring the 8.7-litre Iveco Cursor 9 Natural Power Euro VI engine, which can run on LNG and CNG. It could be said that Iveco is a natural-gas trailblazer, with more than 15,000 of its gas-powered goods vehicles already on Europe’s highways. It was the first commercial-vehicle producer to
30 To r q u e o f t h e t o w n : t h e g a s - p o w e r e d e r a o f r o a d h a u l a g e i s u n d e r w a y
