First new Volvo FH reaches customer

Six months after its world launch, the first production example of a new Volvo FH has been delivered to a customer.

Jean-Pierre Ducournau, who runs Transports Ducournau near Toulon in southern France, bid €150,000 (about £130,000) for the truck in a charity online auction. He was handed the new Euro 6 truck at the Volvo Truck Centre in Roissy-en-France, just outside Paris.

“It’s a really great truck, but then I wasn’t expecting anything other than top quality,” he said.

Above all he is impressed with the new Volvo FH’s road-holding. “It’s undoubtedly the very best available in a heavy commercial vehicle. Even though this is a truck, it has the same comfort as a limousine,” he added.

The new truck will primarily cover long-distance routes between Alpes-Maritimes and Var in southern France and haul cargo in the Paris region.

In March Jean-Pierre Ducournau will travel to South Africa to hand over the proceeds of the auction to Star for Life. The organisation runs an educational programme whose aim is to stop the spread of HIV among young people.