Remember Iveco trucks? Scanias and Ivecos were pretty commonly seen in the USA up until the middle 1990s or maybe even a little after that when both brands removed themselves from the market in the USA. We’re not 100% sure why but we have some inkling it was probably due to emissions or some other mundane and banal thing that the government imposed on them and off they went. Being European manufacturers those companies produced mostly cab over trucks. While there are traditional long nose cabs on the roads in Europe, most of the trucks are cab overs and we’re guessing that has something to do with length restrictions, etc. Anyway, these companies made and continue to make some really tough stuff, especially Iveco through their Astra line.
The machine you see above and below is an Iveco-Astra 8×8 and it is a cab and chassis that has been modified for work in the oil fields. Eventually this thing would likely have had a big flatbed of some sort installed on the chassis and its life now is lived in the blazing heat of the desert doing yeoman’s work in hauling heavy loads from location to location or whatever else needs to be done.
Because of the extreme conditions, this truck has been modified with the tires you see on it, and also it has a lot of auxiliary cooling equipment. It has a torque converter cooler, a huge Modine radiator that we think is a redundant system for the engine, and multiple “other” coolers to handle the temperature management of every other fluid in the truck.
The huge tires are awesome but they are heavy and they require some snot to turn and this thing has it. 500hp is on tap from the Iveco engine that is tucked under the cab. On the tire front we dig the huge beach ball like rears. The whole look is awesome but the rear really have a need appearance to them because of how rounded out they are unlike the square shouldered fronts. As mentioned above, this thing has a massive automatic transmission in it.
From what we have read, trucks with a similar configuration can have a loaded rating of 136 US tons when you take the truck and the payload. That is insane!
This is one cool rig and it is older. These photos depict about a 2009 model but as you can imagine not a whole lot has changed.
Check out the photos and then check out the links below –
