I wasn’t there, but I’m assured by my old man, that truck driving in the mid-’60s was bloody hard graft. Armstrong steering, a severe lack of power, spine-rattling seating and deafening noise levels were just some of the features of trucks of the day, never mind the roping and sheeting, unloading by hand and tortuous road conditions – “Eh, they were tough times, but we were happy!”
Scania’s arrival in the market in 1965 with the LB76, must have come as a major relief to many, bringing with it, as it did a focus on the driver which was unheard of among UK manufacturers of the time. The British truck market of today is very much different from that in which Scania took its first bold strides 40 years ago. Yet Scania’s attention to driver comfort remains and, despite many young pretenders snapping at its heels, there is only one King of the Road. Before we look at the performance differences between these two trucks it’s worth catching up on the technical specs. The LB76 was powered by the Scania DS11, 11-litre engine, essentially the same motor which was still going strong up to the introduction of the new 12-litre engine with the 4-series in 1995. This turbocharged, direct-injection, six-cylinder machine had a maximum power output of 237bhp at 2,200rpm in 1965 and developed a peak torque of 665lbf.ft at 1,400rpm.
The 2005 top power machine gets its horses from Scania’s V8, 16-litre engine and there’s plenty of them on offer. In our test we had 580hp under the bonnet offering a hill-flattening 2,700Nm of torque. But it’s not only on output that the improvements have been made. The current generation engine uses computer-controlled injection technology, which not only means the latest Scania engines are a damned site cleaner than in 1965, but the response from the engine is also greatly enhanced. Add to this improved diagnostics, better engine braking and lower noise levels and you can see where the development money has gone.
Scania was one of the first to offer synchromesh transmissions as standard when the LB76 came to these shores, equipped with a five-speed main gearbox and a two-speed epicyclic splitter unit to give ten forward gears and two reverse. In cab the driver had two levers – one for the main box and one for the splitter – and in later models the splitter box was incorporated into the main transmission and there was just one lever in-cab. Many of the current generation Scania’s are equipped with the automated Opticruise transmission as the market continues to adopt the easier to drive gearbox. For comparison, our 2005 model was equipped with the 12-speed manual box.
Everywhere you look on the truck the technical differences are startling. The cab interior for instance is more than twice the volume, the brakes are now faster and more efficient than before thanks to the use of electronically controlled disc brakes on all axles. The suspension, now air at the rear and parabolic steel at the front, has come a long way since the semi-elliptic leaf springs front and rear on the LB76.
On the road
Compared to many of its contemporaries offering a good deal less horsepower, the LB76 with roughly 240hp on offer was a flying machine at 32 ton gross. A top speed of 54mph wasn’t much to write home about, though the road conditions hardly presented drivers with much opportunity to exploit speeds over 50mph. That said, Commercial Motor in its road test of the LB76 in August 1966, reckoned the fully freighted 32 ton outfit took 60 seconds to go from rest to 40mph, which was a fairly swift performance. By modern standards, however, it’s slow. The R 580 in trials at 44 tonnes would be expected to hit 40mph in half that time, such is the phenomenal power rise from the V8 engines.
