The Erewash Equation

It’s an all-Swedish 13-litre, 500 bhp, big-cab conundrum: Scania’s S500 skyscraper versus Volvo’s formidable FH! We head to Erewash Commercials to find out which is best for its operation

- Dougie Ranking

Scania and Volvo going head-to-head with a pair of near identically spec’d trucks. Good, isn’t it? It’s one of the world’s great rivalries, like Barcelona V Real Madrid or Tennants Super V Carlsberg Special. These days, if it’s not power outputs, it’s electronic technology that’s in the spotlight. Not forgetting the cab. And those Swedes know a thing or two about cabs, coming over here in the ’60s, making the things out of outlandish materials like metal and fitting them with heaters and beds and radios, gently setting a rolling snowball in motion that would ultimately lead to the end of the British manufacturers.

We’d probably have got really angry about that, if it wasn’t for the fact those clever Swedes really know how to screw a truck together. Back in the late ’60s, a Scania or a Volvo was as alluring and exotic as Britt Ekland (another famous Swedish export).

Powering up

Erewash Commercials’ roots can be traced back to 1969, when Erewash Garage was established. Haulage operations followed in 1974, with plenty of work available at the time for tipper fleets across the region, hauling coal from the collieries to power stations. Erewash remained faithful to British truck brands right until the end, with its last ERF being an 07-plate ECT eight-wheeler (which wasn’t really British at all, and not a patch on its EC models). It then moved onto DAFs, which are of course built in Britain.

Company boss Andrew Smith remembers the old days fondly. “We had trucks running 24-7 a lot of the time, stockpiling coal. It was fantastic work until 1984, the year of the miner’s strike and the decline of the coal industry. We brought in a couple of artics after having made enquiries about hauling bricks, and went from there.” The company continued to haul coal, but as time went on, the work became less and less.