VDL’s Futura FHD2 has literally gone to a new length to combine style, substance and economic sense. Ken Mann takes to the road on one of CBW’s Scottish test routes and examines the case for a 13.5m packing 61 seats on two-axles – with 410hp under the driver’s right foot
Even examined on their own, the basic figures for this 13.5m VDL Futura FHD2-135 integral 61-seater (with a sunken WC/CC, centre offside) suggests a bright idea – if intelligently executed.
More punter posteriors on seats, without the usual additional costs of maintenance, fuel and tyres associated with a tri-axle, represents a significant potential profit boost over a wide range of operational deployment scenarios.
Yet there’s a lot more of significance to digest in this proposition than the vulgarity of simple numbers alone, though I’ll get to those still-vital statistics in greater detail later.
When an operator buys into a trusted upper-market brand like VDL, the benefits run to elements that are perhaps harder to define at the initial point of acquisition. Wrapped up under one heading, ‘depth of quality’ might be a fair descriptor.
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