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Hyundai HD75 slides into town
Hyundai NZ is about to shake up the local car transporter and towing industries, with their brand new ready-built tilt-deck units. Working closely with local towing and salvage companies to fine tune their offering, they aim to meet the markets needs exactly. Deals on Wheels recently had a chance to preview and test their prototype. The tweaks and changes they make to this unit will be sent back to the factory, and then NZ spec units will soon be on their way, very competitively priced I’m sure.
Built on the Hyundai HD75 (7500kg GVM) cab chassis; the hydraulic tilt-deck transporter comes complete with hydraulic winch, tail-ramps and cordless remote control. The deck now measures: 5550mm long from headboard to end of the tray, and 2200mm wide between the side-rails. Along with Auckland Hyundai Commercials dealer William Gill & Sons, Lionel Caines of Southern Districts Towing has been helping with the design; Southern Districts Towing will put the first truck to work in their fleet, to see how it goes. Lionel explains “we got Mike McFall from Warkworth Towing and Salvage to take a look at the factory transporter and see what it needed to work best here in NZ, Mike used to work for us and he’s a bit of a guru when it comes to building tow trucks” I went to visit Mike in Whangaparoa to see what modifications he had planned.
Mike explains “We replaced some open sections of the decking with standard tread-plate, and we added around 600mm to the rear of the tray to allow for longer vehicles, this takes the deck out to pretty much the maximum rear overhang; the short wheelbase allows the truck to turn around in very tight spots.” I was expecting the ride to pitch fore and aft due to the long overhang, but there was none of that at all, the truck rode beautifully, both loaded and unloaded. Mike also said “ There weren’t really any decent tie-down points or places to hook your snatch-block off so you could double purchase your winch, so we fitted chain slots and some steel loops in several places to resolve this” Mike clearly knows what he’s doing, when I loaded my fairly long station wagon onto the back, it went on with ease, and with plenty of room to spare.
So, what’s the new Hyundai HD75 like?
You either like the look, or you hate it. The Koreans have their own design language and it takes some time to grow on you; however, for the most part, if you’re the driver, you aren’t looking at the outside; you’re quite comfortable and happy spending most of your day in the very fresh and modern interior. The interior is a refreshing change from the boring grey on grey hard plastics and cloth from some of Hyundai’s competitors. This truck has red seats and they look great! They’re quite comfy too, although; I do think the red will show the dirt and grime over time. The driver seat has a suspended base, and even though it’s only rated to 90kg, it seems to work very well. The dashboard and switchgear is as good or better than most, laid out very clearly and concisely, everything is at hand and within easy reach. There is a mixture of plastics, soft touch vinyl and faux wood grain, making the environment a pleasant place to be, quite car like. I only really have two gripes; the large grab handle looking thing at the top of each door is near on pointless, you can’t get your fingers around it because the window is in the way, and the mirror arms are too elaborate, they are attached to the doors and will possibly cause a fair amount of undue door damage, thanks to unforeseen knocks to the mirrors.
Ok, but what’s it like to drive?
In a nutshell; it’s strange but great. It seems that today’s crop of light trucks have all had a massive infusion of torque, typically reserved for the bigger linehaul trucks. I also noticed this torque increase with the previous two light trucks we tested. Many drivers have cut their teeth with under-powered light trucks, they felt they had to thrash them along to keep any sort of decent momentum, it was known up until recently as the way you drove ‘Jap’ trucks, it was only the big Americans that lugged down low and pulled strongly up the hills. The Hyundai HD75 drives like a linehaul truck. It’s very quiet and it’s deceiving how quickly it gets through the revs, and how effortlessly it gets up the hills.
I loaded my trusty old station wagon on the back and took it for a drive along Whangaparoa Peninsula; this allowed a great opportunity to try lots of running up and down hills, along with plenty of stops and starts at the many traffic lights along the way. Getting through the gears was simple; with the 6 speed gear lever comfortably placed and the gear changes easy to effect. The reverse beeper is very loud, so you shouldn’t have too many issues with people being in the way when going backwards. I found that I was staying in 4th gear a lot, as it seemed to be the right gear, except that I had two more gears to go. It turned out that I could run pretty much everywhere in 4th, up the hills fully loaded was no issue, the 579Nm of torque making itself known there, but after trying later, I found even 5th gear was good for most of the hills, it was quite a strange experience in a fully loaded light truck. The tachometer said the engine was turning only 1200rpm in 5th gear at 50kph, which was the very bottom of the green/economy band; this went right up to 2000rpm, and then redlined at 2600rpm. I had to take the truck back to the motorway to try 6th gear; it was so tall that I found the truck was only doing 1600rpm in 6th gear at 90kph. This truck should be very good on fuel.
Kevin Curran – Commercial Vehicle Sales Manager at Hyundai NZ is spearheading this new approach to new Hyundai truck sales and also has several other ‘ready-built’ trucks in the pipeline such as box bodies, insulated and refrigerated bodies etc. If their approach to getting the factory built car transporter just right for our market is anything to go by; Hyundai light trucks should be a far more familiar sight on our roads in the very near future. Check them out; you might be pleasantly surprised, just like I was.
Article and images by Craig Silby.