Trucking Digest

The last few weeks have been a busy time in Euro Truck Sim 2 with the #OneTruckFamily event set up by SCS Software with the FIA European Truck Racing Championship. The event finally completed last Monday as deliveries were made to London. I don’t often come to England – in fact I haven’t been to London since v1.32 dropped back in September last year and I created a new profile! How different ETS2 life is to IRL 😉

I have shown some images from this event in a couple of recent posts but I thought I’d close out with a couple more screenshots to illustrate how game changes can result in changes of heart regards certain trucks. I’ve written before about not really liking DAF trucks very much. These vehicles have had a bit of a makeover in the last year or so and have also received their own tuning pack. During the event I thought I’d give one of these a try once again as part of my effort to add variety to my event related tweets. I opted for the XF 105 which has the older style cab and I fitted the 510HP PACCAR engine. There is a special paint scheme for the Space Cab version and I gave that a racy-red base colour. The biggest issue for me remains the design of the instrument cluster but I gritted my teeth and set out on the road…
Initially it was a struggle adapting to that dash but perseverance is important in real and virtual trucking. It took a few runs but I started to develop a liking for this particular vehicle. That put me in a bit of a quandary. If the truck was going to stay then it would have to be repainted because Martin Transport et Logistique has a livery policy relating to the company’s general freight and heavy haul divisions. This truck belongs in the general freight division and should therefore be painted in the company’s metallic blue – that’s if I am going to retain her. I swapped over to the Scania R580 of our heavy haul division to do some deliveries while I pondered the situation. Here she is in the marina at Ancona after dropping off one of the racing truck trailers – the security guys said it was ok to park there while I went to get some food…
Several runs later and I had decided to keep the DAF XF 105 (I think the improvements made by the rework of DAF trucks combined with my upgraded monitor may have helped). So, it was back to the workshop for a repaint and some other cosmetic changes to bring her into line with company policy but retain her Gaffer’s Truck status. This is what she looks like now……Quite a change! and here is the cab interior during a drive through a rather wet northern Germany. The model truck on the dash was a reward for completing the #OneTruckFamily event…
To conclude my, limited, coverage of the event, five of my company’s trucks took part. The others were the vintage Volvo F16, MAN Euro 6 560HP XLX, and the Scania R450. I would like to have included our Volvo FH16 which is currently out and about with one of my lady employees but I couldn’t find a positioning run to Limoges where she is based so the swap didn’t happen. SCS put together a video with some stats from the event and included greetings from some of FIA ETRC drivers – you can watch that on the SCS Blog.
That concludes this edition of Trucking Digest but I’ll be back in another post with news as SCS reveal what is coming in update 1.35 which has just entered open Beta testing – be warned – this is a huge update! 🙂