2020 Fuso Shogun FV74 6x4: Review

The first time we saw the Fuso Shogun it didn’t have a name. We were invited to drive one of the developmental vehicles that Fuso had placed into some customers’ fleet for evaluation a few months before the truck was launched and officially named at the Brisbane Truck Show last year.

The new heavy-duty Fuso bears scant resemblance to the truck it replaces which was called simply the Heavy. That vehicle had an old engine and dated technology and safety equipment. It was, compared to some of its rivals, past its use-by date.

The Shogun, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air for the Japanese manufacturer. It has a new engine, new transmission, state-of-the-art technology and a full suite of safety features that can rival anything on the road, Japanese or otherwise.

The heart of the Shogun is a new Daimler-sourced 11-litre engine called the OM470. This six-cylinder common-rail diesel features an asymmetric turbocharger that Fuso claims is the key to delivering more grunt lower down in the rev range.

And grunt it certainly has. The 11-litre will be available with two output ratings: 400hp and 2000Nm or 455hp and 2200Nm. Our test vehicle had the latter output and it really surprised.

Another feature of the new mill is a powerful decompression engine brake that can deliver up to 340kW of braking force. It’s a three-stage unit that when used properly can take most of the braking task away from the service brakes.

The engine drives through a thoroughly modern, again Daimler-sourced, 12-speed automated manual transmission. Fuso says the transmission has been calibrated with the Australian customer in mind and it offers more torque available over a broader rev range in order to reduce the number of gear shifts.

The whole result is designed so that you get a powerful and economic engine/gearbox combination, and that’s what we were eager to check out.
But the engine and gearbox are not the only changes Fuso has made.

The Shogun is available as either a prime mover or rigid truck with configurations covering everything from 4x2 through 6x4 and even 8x4 with load-share front suspension. Gross combination weights run from 40,000kg to 63,000kg, so it should be easily able to handle single-trailer intrastate work or even light B-double.

Safety takes a big step forward on the Shogun and includes autonomous emergency braking (AEB) as standard, plus lane departure warning, electronic stability control, anti-slip regulator, hill-start assist, and Active Attention Assist, which can alert the driver if his or her eyes are wandering from the road or eyelids are drooping, indicating drowsiness.

The driver gets an airbag and seatbelt pretensioner.

The Shogun also features the latest in adaptive cruise control, which can operate in traffic right down to a full stop, the truck then moving off again once the vehicle in front starts rolling. It also has adjustable proximity control so you can adjust the distance you wish to stay from the vehicle in front.

If you choose the higher-horsepower engine, which our truck was, you automatically get the Premium Pack interior. This includes faux carbon-fibre inserts in the dash, which might sound a bit innocuous in a truck but does break up the dash a bit and give it a bit of ‘life’.

It’s a roomy interior with plenty of storage in the centre console, above the windscreen and in the doors. The driver’s suspension seat is comfortable and has a nice arm rest and plenty of adjustment so you can easily achieve the best driving position.

From the driver’s seat, everything is laid out in a neat and logical fashion. There’s a small screen in between the speedo and tacho that displays a range of data that can be scrolled through using the steering-wheel-mounted buttons.

Gears are selected on the left-hand column stalk and it’s here that you can select manual or auto modes and operate the Jake brake. You can select eco or power modes in the transmission with power mode raising the revs for upshift kick-down. We used this a few times and it does help when climbing hills.

To the left, in the centre of the dash is a new seven-inch touchscreen that includes full truck-spec navigation, Bluetooth audio, phone connectivity, rear camera (with up to five in total), a USB port and more.

Below this, there are number of electronic buttons that operate the safety systems like the lane-departure warning, traction control, the inter-axle diff lock, as well as a neat system that allows you to rock the vehicle back and forth should you get stuck in the mud or snow.

Interestingly, all these buttons are interchangeable meaning you can swap them around so you can have the ones you use most in the most convenient positions – it’s a neat feature that allows the driver to semi-customise the dash.

The trailer brakes and the park brake sit neatly to the left of the driver on the centre console where they fall easily to hand.

There’s a bunk up the back with what looks like a fairly substantial and thick mattress. It’d be great for taking a nap while you’re waiting to get loaded or unloaded and maybe for a night away, but there’s not much storage back there so it's probably not ideal for weeks away at a time.

Getting started is a breeze. There's a slot where you enter the key fob then there’s a three-stage pushbutton. The first stage gives you accessories, the second, ignition, and hit it again and you’ve got the starter. Conversely, you can just push it once and hold it in and the truck will fire up.

Fuso says it has done quite a lot of work on the NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) on this vehicle and it shows. Right from start-up, I was impressed by the quietness of the Shogun; you get the burble of the 11-litre diesel but it’s quite subdued and you don’t need to crank up the stereo to hear your favourite tunes – it’s really a nice place to be.

The ride is good too. The Shogun has air suspension on the rear and a long taper leaf with double-acting dampers on the front, and it works a treat.

We were hauling a Freighter tri-axle single trailer and were loaded to just under 30,000kg and the truck felt solid on the road and really smooth in the suspension.

And while the load was well under the Shogun's maximum GCM of 63,000kg, it was pretty typical of the urban and intrastate usage of the truck.

Heading out of Melbourne on the M8 is a pretty good run these days with the road works largely over (for the time being, I suspect), and I found that up through the Pentland Hills we really only had to kick down to 11th gear or at worst 10th to get us churning up the gradient.

The Shogun will lug down really low in the rev range before kick-down but, as mentioned, a couple of times I flicked it into Power mode before the hills. This changed the kick-down parameters and raised it by a couple of hundred rpm, which maintained speed a bit better.

On the flat stuff I was using the adaptive cruise quite a bit. This is a terrific system that lets you know when it has detected a vehicle in front via a light on the central screen and adjusts the speed accordingly. It will also activate the Jake brake if you’re going downhill and look like over-speeding.

I found that the engine was running at around 1750rpm for 90km/h and a bit over 1800rpm at Shogun's speed-limited 100km/h.

At the end of our day on the road with the Fuso Shogun, and after a pretty sedate drive, we were showing 2.4km/litre on the digital readout, which is pretty acceptable for 30 tonnes. I noted when I reset the trip meters at the start of the drive that it was showing 2.2, so we were a bit better than the last guy but pretty much on the money.

The first thought I had when I climbed aboard the Fuso Shogun and started driving was “this doesn’t feel like a Japanese truck”. And that’s obviously because it has borrowed so much from its German parent company. It’s running a Daimler engine, a Daimler transmission and it has all the safety and technology that’s shared throughout the Daimler Trucks family.

It’s kind of like driving a down-spec Mercedes-Benz. And for the operators who are quick to see that, it can only be a bonus. At the time of writing the Daimler execs we spoke to were being tight-lipped on pricing, but if they get it right they could well be on a winner.

A fully-kitted Euro truck for a Japanese-truck price? It could come to pass.

The biggest problem that Fuso has is getting the word out there that this Shogun is streets ahead of the truck it replaces. Bums on seats is the name of the game.

If they can get that, and get the pricing right, I think we’ll see plenty of Fuso Shogun badges on our roads.

Specifications:
Fuso Shogun FV74 6x4
Engine: Fuso OM470-T4 diesel
Configuration: Six-cylinder in-line OHV, asymmetric turbocharger air-to-air intercooler
Displacement: 10.7 litres
Power: 455hp at 1600rpm
Torque: 2200Nm at 1100rpm
Emissions: DPF and SCR for ADR 80/03 – Euro VI
Transmission: Fuso G330-12 12-speed automated manual with Auto and Manual modes
Front Axle: Fuso 900T, 6500kg
Rear Axles: Fuso R12TT/R12T 18,000kg, tandem drive with inter-axle diff lock, LSD to both axles
GVM: 24,000kg
GCM: 63,000kg
Fuel: 400 litres
AdBlue: 60 litres