Giti Tyres Big Test: Full Cream Kenworth

Mangonui Haulage driver Bruce Gregory is emphatic: His new Kenworth is "the best truck I've ever pulled liquids with."

Maybe so, you may be muttering, but who the hell is this Gregory fella – and why's his opinion relevant?

Well, there's a few things: He's the guy who's driving New Zealand's first ever T410 8x4 on tanker work.

He's also a bloke who's done over 40 years behind the wheel – fully 25 of them driving tankers: "From petrol and diesel to water and milk, I've carted a lot of liquids around in my life – in everything from International T-Lines to Kenworths…"

So when he reckons this modestly-powered Kenworth newcomer is the cream of what he's driven on tanker work (sorry, but I do love a good pun), you can be pretty sure he knows what he's talking about.

Pirelli Trevor Test

It was just a few months ago that editor Wayne Munro and sales director Hayden Woolston travelled over to Melbourne for the launch of the Kenworth T410 and T360.

Now we're with the first T410 to hit New Zealand roads – up in the not so sunny Northland, with Mangonui Transport.

It's a transformer truck…which today is in its tanker configuration – the setup that sees it regularly hauling milk from a transfer station in Kaitaia, down to the Kauri Fonterra plant, just north of Whangarei. 

It's a transformer truck as its set up with twistlocks underneath the stainless steel tank – so when it's not carting milk, it can be reconfigured into a logger.