Gavin84w wrote:I think we all woke up to the weight savings aswell, if you ever saw an early Drake 4x 8 swing wing float you would also see the same thing, it was built more solid than a battleship but i guess there reputation grew off the back of those early trailers and now with modern manufacturing techniques and the ability to FEA test stuff before it is even built there designs continue to evolve.
Think you got that a bit wrong.
The reason that the early swing wings were so heavily made, was so that they could stand up to the punishment that was dished out to them. With NEANDATHAL drivers, bloody back braking B model Macks and other assorted ridgid suspension heaps of crud, plus $hitty rough dirt roads, they had to be built tough. The scallies were around, but not in any great numbers like today, so adding a bit of extra puddin' was very popular too, like about 80 tons fitted into the back of a 3 row of 8, yep, they sure could handle it.
Don't know how old you are, but I can remember when they were still made from that heavy sheet steel, the steel back then was only MILD STEEL plate, so you had to go heavy to withstand them cracking from the "abysmal roads" we had back then.
Strange, but there are some of that gear still hitting the roads today, say's something about how WELL they were built, eh.
Now along comes the lighter weight and stronger metals about the early 80's, so Drakie decides to build a light weight 4 row of 8, still had some bad roads then, Neandathal drivers were still alive and kicking and you can guess the result of that first attempt. A dash of too much puddin' and crashing and bashing over $hitty roads, Bingo, she starts to crack up. Took Drakie a couple of attempts at it before he got the weight down to what it is about today.
Just as all this was happening, Drakie decides that he can build a better module than the crap that was being brought into Aust from Europe, Commetto springs to mind real fast about here.
His first attempt was the 6 row of 8 self steering module, bloody marvelous bit of gear, could get it up to the dollar on a good down hill run and it would track like a roller coaster on rails, $hit you could go, stoppin' was a bit hairy. Now compare this with the crud from Europe that could only achieve 60 KPH and it would cut grass on both sides of the road at that frantic pace, wow, what a $hit box they were.
Today Drakie can produced modules of any combination that will out perform any other maker in the world, bold statement, I know, but I will stand by it.
For those that wish to have their eyes opened and be enlightened, please check out this site.
http://www.draketrailers.com/
