It was a close-fought sales contest – with four brands separated by only 41 registrations – but one of largely unheralded achievements in the 2023 New Zealand new truck market belongs to Hino.

The H-brand was the best-selling of the four Japanese marques in the premium 23-tonne and above segment of the New Zealand market last year, claiming third place overall behind Scania and Volvo while pipping Fuso by two units.

The sales result is the work of the latest 700 Series, Hino’s range of 320-, 360-, 450- and 480-horsepower trucks which offer a broad choice of tractor and rigid models in both 6x4 and 8x4 configurations.

Among the recent new adopters for the 700 Series has been Auckland-based civil infrastructure and construction company Dempsey Wood. It put a foursome of new FS 2848 models to work in March 2023 – three units based in Auckland and one from Hamilton.

With Hino narrowly securing the honour of being New Zealand’s top-selling Japanese brand heavy truck (above 23t GVM) in 2023, I thought we’d better go out and sample the 700 Series which delivered the sales success.

And what better way than to test a truck working in a true `bread and butter’ sector of the transport industry – civil construction work.

The Dempsey Wood team put four of the Hino FS 2848 units on the road last year. We met the truck and driver Iggy Hussein at a worksite in West Auckland on a day when he’s carting spoil to a  dump site out at Bombay. Not the most interesting of jobs or routes, but all the same an important one.

Once Iggy has completed a return run to Bombay and back it’s my turn to take the wheel. The  6x4 truck and 4-axle trailer are fully loaded at 45 tonnes (10t on the truck and 16t tonne on the trailer).