Company Announcement - While Bell Equipment's B60 Articulated Dump Truck is designed to give customers an alternative to large rigid trucks in the mining industry, in its small truck range the company has introduced the B25E 6x4 supertruck to deliver a cost effective and versatile alternative to road-going tipper trucks in the construction and quarrying industries.

Comments Bell Product Marketing Manager: ADTs, Tristan du Pisanie: "There is quite a substantial difference between conventional trucks and our standard offering of six wheel drive ADTs in terms of off-road ability. An ADT excels at carrying a payload in extremely challenging conditions such as soft sand, deep mud, undulating ground, rough roads as well as steep inclines and declines. These types of conditions would typically result in more conventional trucks either getting stuck or experiencing premature failures.

"However, this level of off-road ability does come at a price so we filled the gap with our B18E 6x4 and B20E 6x4 supertrucks, the latter being homologated for road use. Now we have introduced the B25E 6x4 recognising that this configuration, with a larger payload, will be a highly productive and attractive proposition for some of our existing customers. In addition new customers whose operations are struggling with their road-going tipper trucks in difficult applications will find a lot of value in the machine."

He added: "Our B25E 6x4 has the same 24 000kg payload and engine performance as our standard B25E. It also shares the typical ADT layout but with a 6x4 drivetrain and 20.5R25 tyres to deliver a substantial cost saving compared to the standard B25E."While the B25E 6x4 doesn't have the same off-road ability as the 6x6 model, it is much better than a conventional tipper truck. In addition it inherits the same long-life, rugged components found in the standard B25E. "Generally tipper trucks go up to an 11 cubic metre bin with an associated payload of about 18 tonnes. There are larger tippers available but they are sold in fairly small numbers so our B25E 6x4 will give many owners a significant payload advantage over these machines," said du Pisanie.

Other benefits for the B25E 6x4 supertruck over a tipper truck are the driven front axle, which assists steering in soft sand in combination with the typical ADT characteristic of a very tight turning circle. Another important consideration is that the Bell truck's have fully certified ROPS/FOPS operator cabs as well as a host of other purpose-designed safety features that are becoming more necessary to meet safety requirements on construction and mining sites.