So I have the good luck to be at the right place at the right time. A friend of mine had been invited along to a Volvo demo day in Holland (As he buys some of his trucks there), and as I was parked down the road with pretty much a week off he managed to wangle it for me to go along with him to view and drive the new FH.
Once we got there and had some coffees and breakfast, we were split into groups as there were 3 parts to our day. The first part we attended was a talk on the health of drivers and how it affected profit in the workplace. All the talks were in dutch but the salesman my friend uses was translating the more important points for us. One funny one to come from this talk was one operator saying one of his drivers was on a health kick, went out mountain biking, fell off and broke his leg, so that was a bit counter productive!! It was interesting seeing some of the figures, and also some drivers who were interviewed and their ideas/opinions on food! (one driver claimed pizzas have a lot of vegetables on and are therefore very healthy food!)
coffe to start the day
i like the embossed panel, and this one has the adblue tank on the catwalk so you can have bigger diesel tanks
After this talk it was then our turn to have a drive in the new Volvo. There were 14 demonstrators, 3 were fh16 750s, the rest were all globetrotter XLs except one, and a few had the new independent front suspension. My first drive was in one of the fh16s, grossing 50 tonnes loaded with concrete I set off round the course. And what an experience it was, I know the truck I drive normally is a wheezy 410, but the pull on this thing was just incredible! I have always been a fan of how Volvos drive, their engine brake is fantastic and I have always found them comfortable to drive. This new model is no exception, and the new cabs visibility is incredible, the a pillars a lot further forward, the windows slope down a lot lower, no real mirror casing and with the hole between the main mirror and the blind spot mirror. The under bunk storage is pretty good now, and im sure the mattress is a sight bigger than the old model, with electric adjustments to bring it up. I know the roof slopes backwards so the overhead lockers could in theory be bigger but I don’t think you would notice a huge amount of difference if it was a square cab like the daf, I know im not a tall man by any measure but I had no problems standing up inside. The sunroof is huge, but its also the escape hatch in case of an emergency.
The second truck I tried was the globetrotter with IFS. The difference inside is about 10-15cm roughly so they are not that much smaller, although this was a twin bunk cab it felt smaller after the XL. The IFS was pretty impressive, on the section where they had placed bumps you didn’t feel anything through the steering column, and apparently is has new cab mounts which made a difference too. As it was approaching lunchtime, I asked very nicely so I could squeeze a drive in with another 750, this time an 8x4 with low loader at around 62 tonnes. This was a beast, yet it handled better than what I thought it might, and again the pulling power was fantastic
lined up demos
the only globetrotter there
inside…
excuse my ugly mush, i was controlling my camera via my phone as it doesnt have a screen to see what your taking! 
After our lunch break we were taken to an area called the Volvo experience, where we were talked through a lot of the new features on the new FH, like the remote control extra you can get, which you can start the truck with, adjust the air and other things all remotely, pretty clever but I didn’t think there would be a huge advantage over a normal wander lead, im sure there are applications it would be great, maybe swap bodies. Then we had a chance to drive a Volvo FE hybrid truck, electro-diesel. It was so strange to set off in complete silence, with the engine kicking in around 25km. I will admit I wasn’t the smoothest driver with this as when you let off the throttle as it slows down it charges the batteries but im sure if you were in one regularly it wouldn’t show! We also had a quick go in one of their electric cars. I have always sort of been anti electric, for no good reason to be honest! I guess I have always thought of them as being small, gutless and needing charging every 10 minutes. This thing was pretty ■■■■ rapid, and I was very impressed although we were not able to find out much about the range etc as we were off to our final section and lecture, which was about the safety improvements and about their crash investigation department, which included a bit on one of their field test vehicles which crashed in Sweden when being trialled!! They also have a new system (I believe its new to this model anyway) but I cant remember what its called, which will sound a buzzer when your approaching a stationary or very slow moving vehicle it and if no action is taken it will pull on the brakes and stop you hitting it, it works up to about 50km an hour. It was very strange sitting in there, approaching a mock up car and not being able to brake, to then stop almost on a sixpence! I think the driver was saying if your doing around 90kms with this system it can knock about 20km or so off your speed before you crash, which I guess may give you time to react if you haven’t seen the danger already
the hybrid
‘time machine’ classic
and a couple of videos of the emergency stopping in action
Before long the day was done, and we were having a final coffee before heading back to my truck. I have to say was an incredible day. Up until this point I hadn’t seen one of the new trucks in the flesh, and thought they didn’t look nice at all, but after seeing them I didn’t think they looked as bad as I thought, and I think they will grow on me like the new merc, (as long as they are painted and not just accountant white and plastic they look alright I think), and the improvements in space and visibility leave everyone else trailing in my opinion. I still think the super space daf has more storage space but I bet the Volvo isn’t draughty like the daf. Would I swap one for my daf? I think I probably would if it was a fairly high spec xl, the normal globetrotter doesn’t have the space like what I have now, but daf need to sort several small matters out which let the truck down
Well I hope you have enjoyed this!
All the best, Tim 
. over to you then volvo to convert me back