New Heavy Duty Brand in Town

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Diesel News Australia  /  August 2019

There’s a new heavy duty brand in town and from a new source country, South Korea. On first impressions, people might be surprised by the sophistication of the new Hyundai Xcient prime mover which has recently arrived from South Korea.

The design suggests the Hyundai team has been closely examining top of the range European prime movers and it seems to have done a good job. This is a spacious, comfortable and well built cabin, coupled with an effective driveline.

A batch of production trucks have arrived and are touring the country’s small band of Hyundai truck dealers. This is not a big splash launch, this is a ‘bring the trucks into the country and let people touch and feel the new product’ campaign for customers to see what they think.

Hyundai have been active here in Australia for some time, but at the lower end of the GVM scale. The current models being offered come in at 4.5 or or 6.5 times GVM. They are the kind of light duty truck we have seen arriving from many Asian manufacturers.

They have had some success, so far this year Hyundai has recorded 62 truck sales, according to the figures published by the Truck Industry Council on a monthly basis. This is not earth shattering but at least the brand has been able to bother the scorers.

The new Xcient prime mover is something completely out of the box. It is a full blown European-style cabover prime mover with a 520 hp Engine coupled with the tried and tested ZF ASTronic automated manual transmission, including an effective four stage retarder.

Diesel News took the opportunity to test drive this new heavy duty brand in town and put it through its paces on the roads of Southeast Queensland. The tests that included an ascent and descent of the arduous Cunningham’s Gap. It is on climbs this where you can demonstrate the true mettle of a driveline, the quality of the power, torque and retardation available from the Hyundai engine.