Light touch for 'Star agitator

The holy grail of the concrete agitator truck market is tare weight, but Western Star's ultra-conventional 4700 – basically a full-size Tonka toy – is not really built with weight savings front of mind. So, to target this large and lucrative market Western Star has taken a somewhat unconventional approach, engaging GTE in Perth – a part of the giant Chinese CIMC Steel group – to build a lightweight agitator body that lends the 4700 some street cred in this cut-throat arena.

Based on an 8x4 chassis, the unit is aimed directly at Isuzu's brilliantly successful FY 8x4 and 10x4 range. These trucks were gamechangers, as operators who always recognised the Japanese brand's unparalleled reliability record now had a chassis to match the application.

Sales of the FY have skyrocketed in the construction sector and particularly in the concrete business, where there is a large contingent of owner operators, many of whom are subcontracted to the major cement batching plants around city and suburban areas.

Western Star's 4700 was the ticket it needed to enter that market, and in the case of the 4700 8x4, the tare weight opportunity afforded by GTE's new Chinese-made concrete mixer range made the offering ultra-attractive.

GTE's parent specified a new lightweight grade of wear-resistant steel for the bowl. The new-spec unit was released in May 2014 in BW300TP high-tensile material and is already in service in Vietnam, Hong Kong and Indonesia. GTE imports the frame as well as the bowl, with the hydraulics and other fittings all sourced locally.

According to Perth dealer AV Trucks the 4700 is already gaining plaudits from experienced operators, particularly as most are aiming for maximum manoeuvrability. My drive of the 4700 last year when I took a tipper version up into the ranges inland from Brisbane certainly confirmed a tight turning circle.

On the outside, this latest Western Star is very much a chunky US truck – something that wouldn't appear out of place in a military compound in some far-flung corner of the globe.

The 4700 is available in power ratings from 260hp up to 400hp. The demo unit I crawled over had a Cummins ISLe5 SCR engine rated at 340hp and 1490Nm. Manual and auto gearboxes are available for the 4700 range but the 8x4 can only be specified with the Allison 3000RDS auto with push-button shift control. A 1300 square inch heavy-duty radiator package includes a Horton two-speed engine fan.

The front axles are tandem Meritor units on leaf springs. At the rear, Dana Spicer axles are on Airliner 20,865kg air ride suspension. The chassis is single channel.

There's a 189-litre aluminium fuel tank plus 49 litres of AdBlue. AV's has replaced the battery, toolboxes and FUPS system backing plate with aluminium units. These measures, along with the lightweight bowl, combine to keep the tare weight low – 10,960kg with full fuel, AdBlue and 200 litres of water in the water tank.

As a cab chassis the rig weighed in at 7880kg. Most operators would recognise that a complete concrete rig at 3080kg is pretty impressive. Combined with the already lightweight Western Star, this neat GTE set-up promises a healthy lift in productivity – and one that should garner plenty of interest in the cut-throat agitator market.