Trucks / Buses

A campervan fit for a king

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Firstly id like to say I’m not that keen on camping, campervans or people that clog the roads with their caravan but if id had to go camping it would be in the van in the video above. Known as the Volkner Performance Motorhome, the cost of this thing is more than the average home, but you could live in this thing for a fair while and be very comfortable with its pop up plasma TV, full bathroom and luxury fittings. When you need to pop down the shops this van like many normal homes has a built garage to house you luxury sports car. With a price tag of around 750.000 Pounds you would want to like camping a lot but with this one it really does beat spending a week pooping in a bucket. Personally i think I keep ponying up the cash to stay in a hotel.

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MOTAT Museum of Transport & Technology

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MOTAT is the largest transport and technology museum in New Zealand with over 40 acres of exhibitions. Opening in 1964 the centre is built on a site where a pump station pumped water from Western Springs to the centre of Auckland. The centre has hours of educational entertainment for all ages, there’s an activities centre with over 20 displays including a huge Hand’s on Science Centre. There are all forms of road transportation, trams, railway stock, aviation, military, busses you name it- if it moves they have it. Some of the more notable items in their collection include the only Solent Mark IV Flying Boat in the world and one of only a handful of WW2 Avro Lancaster Bombers in the world, the first chilled beer tanker in the World and Billy T James’ 1954 Chevrolet. MOTAT also has one of the largest fire engine collections in the world. A very impressive collection indeed.

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The British Commercial Vehicle Museum

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The British Commercial Vehicle Museum is a museum celebrating the once great British motor industry. The museum is located in the town of Leyland, Lancashire, England, it is this town that gave its name to the bus and truck manufacturer that became the UK’s largest motor manufacturer after acquiring most of the British motor marques. At one point British Leyland enjoyed 40% of the British motor industry but those days are long over. One part of the Leyland group that did survive was the truck manufacturing operations, its no longer British owned and now builds trucks for the DAF brand so if you want to see Leyland or Foden buses and trucks from the glory years of British motor industry head to The British Commercial Vehicle Museum.

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My other tractor is a Porsche

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A lot of people have heard the famous story about how tractor manufacturer Lamborghini started to produce sports cars after he had a tiff with Enzo Ferrari, but not many people know that the Porsche name can also be found on tractors. It all started around the time Ferdinand Porsche was developing the VW Beetle and the German government asked him to work on a peoples tractor to go along with the peoples car. To cut a long story short it was a pretty good design, WW2 got in the way but after that several companies licenced his design and Porsche badged tractors were built until 1963.

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Now thats a truck

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We’d be the first to admit the only thing we know about trucks is that they are big and kinda cool, well they dont get much bigger and cooler than the 2009 International Lonestar that has just ben released at the Chicago Auto Show. The truck features cool things like a Workspace to plug in laptop computers and work in a desk-like setting, a Mini refrigerator, Wood flooring in the sleeper cab and a built in blutooth hands free kit. The interior of this thing looks nicer than many hotels and with an 11 speaker stereo system Johnny Cash never sounded so good.

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Toyota A-Bat

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Toyota have a very interesting concept vehicle on their stand at the Detroit motorshow this week, the A-bat, it is part pick up truck and part car. The vehcile featues a lot of recyclable materials including metals and wood. The seats, center console and dashboard use both carbon fiber and aluminum, while the door trim, armrests and seat cushions are made of a tough light weight materials. A-BAT also uses a Hybrid Synergy Drive system similar to what Toyota use in its Highlander vehicle. One interesting feature is solar panels built into the dash which charge a removable power pack which can run AC/DC power.

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Suzuki X-Head Concept

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This one looks straight out of the Pixar Disney move Cars, the nearly comical and almost Tonka Truck, Suzuki X-Head Concept is the star attraction on the Suzuki stand at this years Detroit Motor Show. This little pickup is meant to have the toughness of the popular Jimny and the load carrying capacity of the Carry. It’s part SUV and part Pickup truck and about the size of a wheelbarrow with a wheelbase of only 93 inches and very little overhang. The car was first shown at the Tokyo Motor Show a few months back and got rave reviews. There are some very interesting and clever compartments and options designed for this vehicle and lets hop Suzuki get to work and bring something like this to the market, it will make motoring much more fun.

Aixam Mega Truck

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For Transeum’s first truck story we thought we would feature the Aixam Mega Truck because it is not only practical it is so cute! These trucks come from Lyon in France, we took this shot at the Paris Motor Show and really wanted to bring it home. The vehicle has been designed to be a low environmental impact utility vehicle which has been built for short hauls around cities. It has an aluminum chassis and most of its body parts are made up of polycarbonate panels and parts. There are two choices for power plant, either a diesel or a very environmentally friendly zero emission electric engine. The basic truck is just under three metres long, and one and a half metres wide and has a payload of 425 kg for the electric and 460 for the diesel. Being so light it is an ideal vehicle to use in cities and as the body is so safe it is very pedestrian friendly, a lot of councils, and even hospitals and resorts across Europe are switching to these vehicles for street sweeping and other city duties. And just as a final point to this vehicles environmental credentials- the truck is 100% recyclable once its life is over.