Stretching the Isuzu F Series legs

When you picture the outback, you picture bonneted American trucks, or suave Swedish cabovers, pulling two, three or four trailers. You don't picture a Japanese rigid belting up the Stuart Highway.

But that picture is only half right, because for every prime mover there's a smaller truck doing the less glamorous, but equally important work. Delivering the smaller items like bread, mail and spare parts that keep the towns most of us have never heard of ticking along. The big trucks pass through, while the little ones stop.

So, when Isuzu told us they’d planned to cross the country for their regional roadshow, ferrying a couple of N Series demonstrators and new F Series heavies out to country dealers, we talked them into letting us join for a steer.

We’d already tested the new F Series around town, taking a handful of the models from Isuzu’s headquarters in Truganina, down to Torquay and back.

It proved to be an impressive truck, keeping much of what makes the F Series such a dependable choice, while modernising it with cleaner credentials and loads more standard technology.

But, the real test would be taking the F Series off the beaten track, away from city stop-start traffic and onto outback highways that would put its chassis, and powertrain, to the test.

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We loaded three new N Series models onto a pair of F Series tilt trays at North East Isuzu in Burton, Adelaide, and aimed the convoy at Coober Pedy, around 850km north, to see whether the new Euro 6 Isuzu models could handle the outback.

And, also because it’s a stunning outback run that beats sitting at the desk…

I took the keys to the bigger FYJ 320-355 8x4 tilt tray built by Custom Transport Equipment (CTE), complete with a pig trailer to carry a second N Series, with Isuzu's National Sales Trainer, Tim Richardson, riding shotgun.

Tim's an ex-military man who cut his teeth wheeling Unimogs around these very parts in his army greens, so he knows the region well.

Trailing us in the FXD tilt tray was Geoff Brown, an Adelaide-based signwriter (the old-school, do-it-by-hand kind) and truckie. He’s also, as I'd discover, a walking, talking encyclopaedia when it comes to anything truck related.

After leaving Burton, the suburban sprawl fell away as we entered South Australia’s wheat country, leaving Adelaide in the rear-view mirror on what we'd started calling our ‘outback odyssey’.

The paddocks flattened, the distant ranges came into view, and the F Series settled into a long-legged lope at a speed-limited 100km/h. It's the proven 9.8-litre six up front, now Euro 6 compliant, and while it's only packing a moderate 259kW, it pulls our 25-tonne setup in top gear without complaint.

Isuzu has tuned this engine and the accompanying Allison auto six-speed well, because the gear selection means the engine is always on the steam to offer all 1437Nm when you need it. It doesn’t, like so many Japanese truck engines, require you to work it hard.

What I didn't forget when I first tested the new models was the seat. Isuzu has fitted a proper ISRI air-suspended unit to the new F Series, and somewhere past Port Wakefield, where we'd stopped for a sensational satay curry pie, my back was thankful over some rough sections of road.

The FYJ also has a Hendrickson airbag rear-end, which makes it comfortable along the Augusta Highway and it handles the load well. I can’t feel the pig trailer moving around, nor does it appear to be in the mirrors.

We’re a bit below the 32,000kg GVM and 45,000kg GCM of this model, but it’s exceedingly well behaved on the road so far.

Geoff’s FXD behind us is virtually the same truck, but features a simpler leaf-sprung rear end, and a lower GVM of 17,000kg and GCM of 38,000kg. He told us over the radio that it’s a bit of a rocket, but also mentions that he can feel the lane-keep assist working on some of the rougher sections.

Our first real detour was Lochiel, for a look at Lake Bumbunga which turns a vivid bubblegum pink when the salt, algae and angle of the sun line up. After a lot of rain, it was brown rather than pink, but bobbing in the shallows was the famous Loch-eel monster.

It’s a homemade tribute that is Australia’s own version of the Scottish Loch Ness Monster, and a little bit further up is an even older version made out of old truck tyres.

From the lake it's a short run to Port Pirie, and a stop I'd urge anyone passing through to make, at the Stories from the Road museum. It’s a quiet tribute to the truckies who built this region, with old prime movers, transport trinkets, and a memorial carrying the names of drivers who never made it home.

This was Geoff's natural habitat, and he and I could have easily spent the rest of the day here. He drifted between the trucks, rattling off their history, and we even came across a truck he’d signwritten himself many years ago.

But the thing that really got us excited was a little engine on a stand in the back of a shed: a Commer TS3. Geoff explained that back in the 1950s vehicle registration went off how many cylinders an engine had and it was a big expense for operators, so England-based Rootes Group designed a three-cylinder diesel that actually had six pistons.

The TS3 is a 3.26-litre two-stroke engine with three cylinders, and six horizontally-opposed pistons driving a single crankshaft, force-fed by a supercharger. Sort of like a boxer engine, but with the most unusual connecting rod layout you’ve ever seen.

"They were in Commer Knocker trucks back in those days and they sounded like nothing else,” Geoff told us, visibly excited.

We noticed the engine was hooked up to a battery and had a control panel, so we flagged down a volunteer and asked if we could start it. The volunteer said he didn't know how, but told us we were welcome to try.

Geoff tinkered around for a few minutes, tracing wires and familiarising himself with a shutoff plate that would prevent a dreaded ‘runaway’, should the engine decide to start running on its own oil. Suddenly the shed was filled with the roar of the TS3.

“They’re loud, but guys would run from Adelaide to Darwin in Commer Knockers back in the '60s," Geoff told me, after shutting the engine off. “They’d have needed ear plugs, that’s for sure!”

Back on the road, the wind farms outside Port Augusta came into view, turbines turning in slow, mesmerising unison. Having done this run a number of weeks earlier, the turbines represent the beginning of the outback.

Once through Port Augusta, the Stuart Highway opens up and it’s red dirt and as far as the eye can see. It runs straight up the centre of Australia, all the way to Darwin, spanning a colossal 2720km.

We were driving directly into a blistering orange sunset when Tim decided it’d be rude not to stop to get a photo of the trucks. We pulled into the Range View rest stop, and within 15 minutes the sun had all but disappeared.

Pushing on to Woomera, we were glad to have bullbars on the two Isuzu F Series trucks. Thankfully, no roos were hit, and the Narva spotlights on the FYJ lit up the night as we continued to cover ground.

With around 490 clicks behind us, we made our way into the old military town of Woomera. The trucks haven’t missed a beat so far, and the F Series has proven to be a mix of comfortable, capable and easy to drive.

On morning two we wandered into Woomera's missile park on the outskirts of town, to look at the Cold War-era rockets and missiles left here. The US Army used to test a lot of its missile technology out here, and still does. Australia’s first satellite was also launched here too, back in 1967. Not a bad way to start a day.

Breakfast was at the famous Spud’s Roadhouse in Pimba, home to one of the better bacon-and-egg sandwiches you’ll find on the road. Then, well-fuelled by grease, it was 370 kilometres of dead-straight tar with little reason to stop on our way to Coober Pedy.

The roos got bigger, the country got grander, and the F Series continued to impress us. Tim picked the landmarks off as they came, while Geoff hung back to take it all in. The cabin of the FYJ, atop the sensational ISRI seat, is a great place to be and we’re yet to find a reason this truck couldn’t cut it in the outback.

As we approached Coober Pedy, the mullock heaps leftover from the opal mining came into view. The landscape is littered with prehistoric mining gear, like old Ford trucks and Cat dozers that look like they’d have to be from the ‘40s.

There are still active opal mines out here, little leases of land where hopeful locals dig day in, day out looking for rocks. We want to head off the road to take some photos of the trucks in the desert, but we’re warned not to get too close to any of the active sites.

“They might shoot at you,” a local half jokes when we ask about a good spot.

After braving the flies and getting the shots of the trucks at sunset, sitting pretty in a patch of dirt a few hundred metres off the main highway, we pack it in for the day. It’s time for a beer and a steak. Or, on Tim’s recommendation, an emu pizza.

We parked up at the iconic Desert Cave Hotel, where you’ve got to stay when you’re in Coober Pedy. I can see the F Series trucks from the bar, as we mull over the drive; what we liked, didn’t like, would do again.

The F Series is about as refined as a Japanese truck gets, while still offering the rugged dependability the Isuzu brand is known for. Sure, the majority of F Series trucks are going to end up on construction sites in major cities, or perhaps in regional towns, unlikely to traverse the Stuart on a daily basis.

But, can they kick it in the outback? Absolutely, and from here Tim intends to take them further north to Darwin, before cutting across to Cairns, down to the Gold Coast, and eventually back to Melbourne. We think they’ll do it with ease.

Engine: Isuzu 6UZ1-TCC, 9.8-litre six-cylinder turbo-diesel (Euro 6)
Power: 259kW @ 2000rpm
Torque: 1437Nm @ 1400rpm
Transmission: Allison 4430 GEN 6 six-speed automatic
GVM: 32,000kg
GCM: 45,000kg (with approved towing controls)
Suspension: Single stage steel taper leaf with double-acting shock absorbers and stabiliser bar (front) Hendrickson HAS 461 4-bag air spring (rear)
Fuel tank: 400L (diesel) and 28L (AdBlue)
Warranty: Six-year / 600,000km factory warranty + 24/7 roadside assist