I think the Argosy is beautiful. Something about the way a COE aero truck tucks into the rest of the rig and it just flows....

 

I have driven both. Us spec and euro spec'd trucks. wide open highways and truck comfort.....usa conventional. When you need tight manuvering truck the Coe is awesome, and the Euro style truck are great. I have driven volvo 460 and mercedes actros trucks. Both had good power but that v8 mercedes was pretty awesome (was told 470hp) manual gearboxes were synchronized. Power easy shifting, good ride, quick manuvering. that Actros was the sports car of trucks. The mercs also had a pretty nice auto gear box. It was a little more of a dog than the manual. I absoloutley hated the semi automatic gear box. It had a clutch pedal and the same shifter as the auto. You woul bump the shifter and clutch, then you woul have to wait , then wait some more for some little device in the dash to make a clck,clunk sound, then let the clutch out.
if you let out the clutch too early it would buzz at you and not go into gear. I did prefer the volvo's for one reason. The AC was great. the actros had miserable AC, which was important in Iraq. Traction was really good ( 4 way lockers ). These trucks were spring ride and still rode good. I will say the visibility would be good on both trucks, but not the ones I drove. The armor kits on the cabs made for huge blind spots. The only euro style cabover I have seen here was a Foden. It must have been imported by KW. It had KW badges on it.

 

Like it was said before, lots more space and a lot longer distances to cover here. Finland can be transversed from north to south in under 800 miles. Leaving New Mexico, that distance will barely get you through Houston on I-10. It's more than double that to get from Laredo (not the farthest south point in Texas) to Canada.

That's why I don't have much patience for people who start spewing drivel about how we should govern our trucks like Europe does.

 

Sorry bumping old thread but got to comment this...

If you compare the distance, then compare Finland to one single State, not whole continent, which should be EU vs US.

By the way, NM north border to south border distance is just 350 miles.

I know several Nordic guys who imported conventional US trucks to Finland and use those as show trucks. The wheelbase is so long that with tractor-trailer length limit, they are useless and would require super short trailer, which in turn would not carry much load and there wouldn't be much revenue coming in.

 

You might notice I picked one of the longer cross-country hauls there to compare to one of the longer cross-state hauls here. What's the farthest you can get from a major sea port there? What's the longest fairly straight trip you can make across the mainland north-south? East-west?

I've heard it said, Europeans think 100 miles is a long way, Americans think 100 years is a long time.

And I'm pretty sure that my ancestors came to America because it wasn't Europe.

 

It's interesting to see the differences between European and North-American trucks. In Finland, trucks have strict size and weight limits, which makes American models like Kenworth and Peterbilt
less common.The European cab-over design allows drivers to sit higher, which seems different from North-American trucks. It’s also clear that European trucks and trailers have specific rules, while
North-American are designed for more power and size. It sounds like each system has its own reasons for these designs, based on what works best in their areas.