The Tararua district provided dry cows and a rainy springtime morning for New Zealand Truck & Driver to try out the latest addition to the Beale Trucking fleet.

The 750hp Volvo FH 16 Globetrotter XL stock unit in the familiar red, black and silver livery of Beale Trucking is a work-in-progress for Regan and Toyah Beale’s Mangatainoka-based company.

Although the firm’s young driver Regan Taylor has been busy clocking up 10,000km in the Volvo across five weeks, there is a new trailer and some finishing touches to the lighting and graphics still to come before the new combination is complete.

Regan Beale says he ordered a pair of new 750hp FH 16s about two-and-a-half years ago. This livestock unit was the first to go on the road in late-August, while the second – in bulk tipper configuration – is currently in build at Jackson Enterprises a few minutes down the road at Pahiatua.

For the meantime 750-horsepower is the biggest number offered by Volvo.

But with a new 17-litre 780hp engine coming next year, we thought we better go and test the 750 before it is surpassed by an even more powerful engine.

We catch up with Beale Trucking’s new FH 16 750 Globetrotter livestock unit to spend the day with up-and-coming driver Regan Taylor on some Tararua and Manawatu roads.

Regan is the regular driver and is only 22-years-old. Considering he’s been handed the keys to a top-of-the-line European truck, it’s probably wrong to use the term `up and coming’.