09/05/2026
You know those trucks that look like they mean business until you actually ask them to do some business?
This DAF LF 18-tonner was one of those.
Somebody has slipped a tiny little Cummins engine in it from what felt like a retired 7.5 tonner that used to deliver bread rolls to garden centres.
Flat road? It managed.
Slight incline? It entered a period of deep personal reflection.
You’d put your foot down and get more noise than movement. The turbo screamed like it was fighting for its life while cyclists overtook it giving sympathetic looks. At one point a milk float nearly undertook us.
Loaded up, the thing couldn’t pull the skin off rice pudding.
You’d hit a hill and watch the speedometer slowly negotiate a surrender:
“40… 35… 28… you know what, let’s just put the hazards on now.”
Changing gear became less of a driving technique and more of a hostage negotiation.
Then came the VTS treatment.
We worked our magic on it like truck therapists:
“Come on son, you are an 18-tonner. Believe in yourself.”
Suddenly the throttle actually did something. Hills stopped being major historical events. The truck discovered overtaking was possible, and the engine no longer sounded like a Dyson trying to tow a bungalow.
It still wasn’t exactly a race truck, nobody was entering it into Le Mans m, but at least now it could pull away from traffic lights without causing resentment from the entire county behind it.
