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Good luck with trying to range change any range change box without going through neutral to trigger the range change interlock.
Also donāt remember the Spicer being a range change or needing to go into neutral to split shifts other than for skip shifting which by definition means going through neutral.
Ro if you check Iām absolutely sure that youāll find that the TM was also actually offered with a full fat 370 14 litre Cummins and 13 speed.Fuller.Admittedly not in 1977 but they can be forgiven for thinking that the 8v92 would be enough to leave the F89 or F12 in a cloud of dust over the Cenis or Brenner let alone an F88 and obviously a better cab to park up in for the night than the 88/9.
With all that expertise that you obviously have that I donāt have youāll obviously have no problem whatsoever in reeling off the relative cab sizes of a KW and a full width sleeper TM and an F88.(Iāve never driven a standard sleeper cab over KW let alone an Aerodyne or an F88 but I know the KW is going to win this match and the F88 isnāt even in it ).
Even by your own logic the TM unarguably had a 3 year head start over the F10 from drawing board to going on sale.
While regardless of the laughable personalised double standards, regarding anything which I say just because I said it, you actually are arguing with Ro just the same as me, regarding whether Bedford turned out a premium product in the form of the TM v the F10.Let alone the F88.Certainly a more Anglo friendly one recognised by NZ at least just like numerous other UK, American driveline based, products from ERF and Foden etc.The difference being that unlike Oz NZ didnāt have the large KW based domestic interest.
As for Volvo in Oz obviously the first job was to throw out the nasty weak synchro box for Fuller .Then try to keep the overstressed heap cool enough without it cooking and self destructing.
CF, youāre absolutely right about the 370 14 litre Cummins with Fuller 13-sp being an option in the TM. Hereās the news article that announced its introduction.
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Have you ever heard of the term productivity CF? A lorry storming past another lorry uphill didnāt and doesnāt make it the best.Payload , fuel efficiency reliability are just a few factors to consider. Just like the Crusader you have plucked anothet lorry out of the air and championed it. Why didnāt the TM sell so well , they were more likely to have been developed due to the fact Ford were doing the same thing with the Transcontinental , another lorry with problems in the UK 1 major problem being that they were very heavy .Both Ford and Bedford never made a roaring success within the heavy market
Thanks Ro now maybe you could politely ask our antipodean expert to clarify this new Australian driving technique for the extremely rare, if not unheard of, Range Change Spicer box.Obviously assuming that heās not actually describing skip shifting a splitter box.
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I canāt help thinking that we should perhaps be attempting to define what a premium truck is. Is it a successful full-weight full-size unit that ticks the boxes? That is: a fairly high-powered, multi-geared, reasonably economical, reliable, strong, cab-comfortable unit able to run at max weight.
It seems to me that SDU does not see all trucks that fall into that category as āpremiumā trucks. And he has a point. In the ā70s TRUCK magazine classified those top end trucks that were given top power and all the bells and whistles, designed more for the owner driver than for the fleet operator, as āSuper-trucks.ā
A good example is the ERF E-series in the early ā90s. That was a very popular premium motor, well liked for its economical profile. ERF offered a āsuper-truckā version of it, aimed at owner-drivers with plenty of dosh. It offered a choice of two 400+ Cummins lumps, a Fuller instead of an Eaton Twin-splitter and lots of added extras. (As an aside, most of the added extras amused me in that they would have been considered basic equipment on a Scania, but letās park that).
I suggest that CF leans more towards certain spec super-trucks and thinks of them as premium trucks, in the same way he does with cars. I am not entirely unlike CF in this respect, in that I tend to favour what Iāve always called ādriversā trucksā ā ie units that are fun to drive rather than economical to operate. The main difference between my choices and CFs is that the high speed thing doesnāt particularly interest me.
I donāt remember anything about Spicers now, CF and I most certainly wouldnāt presume to teach more experienced transport men than me how to drive.
Really? Your criteria of premium is sleeper size! 
The Kenworth varied, depending on market, chosen option and local legislation. TM, why would I know or even care? F/G 88/89, if I remember correctly 30", forgive me if Iām a few inches out, blame it on an aging memory.
How on earth would you or I know how long either spent on the drawing board, or anywhere else in engineering?
Do you ever proofread your ramblings, before hitting the reply button?
In spite of appearances, I donāt disagree with you for the sake of of it. I disagree with you when you are wrong, which is most of the time, proving that experience trumps googling every time.
Iām not arguing with Ro, Iām having a discussion with him.
For the record, I have not actually stated that Volvo was a premium truck. I have refrained from taking a pedantic stance, not correcting your assumption. Volvo make a high quality, mass produced product. A premium truck is one of the highest quality that can be totally custom built.
Your beloved Bedford is neither of those. It would be in the same classification as the Australian Ford Louisville and International, a cheap and cheerful truck, available with some quality, proprietary componentary. You cannot make a silk purse from a sowās ear. Donāt get me wrong, these cheap and cheerful vehicles set a lot of blokes up and were the foundation blocks for some of our largest and most successful fleets.
Pay attention carefully here, Iām entering territory that is totally foreign to you; truck business, profit and loss and the role of transport. NEWS FLASH! Transport is a business. It is businessās responsibility to make a profit, it is not an avenue for you to play with other peopleās big toys.
Australia and New Zealand have very different political and taxation landscapes. The death knell for British trucks, in Australia was the lifting of the tax protections, favouring British and Commonwealth trade. New Zealand had harsher import duties than us, to the point that they were using 30 and 40 year old car as daily drivers. New Zealand became a constant stream of parts for our old Pommie car buffs.
**INTERMISSION **
For Oily.
Inarguably premium.
Truck drivers and business owners (with caveats) do not decide which makes and models of truck go into which markets. That is the role of the sales and marketing department of the truck manufacturers. Obviously in the case of GM and GM-H, Isuzu was going to be far more profitable than the Luton product.
Got to love the way you make up āfactsā to suit your mental scenario.
The real facts are that a bloke called Ed Cameron imported a few Kenworths, when the import duties were relaxed. These performed as well as anything European and in many scenarios and roles, better.
As good as they were, they were far from perfect. Kenworth listened to the criticism and reacted accordingly, soon setting up Kenworth Australia to build a truck for the harsher local conditions. Australia and the United States do not share any common model Kenworths. Our Kenworths are specifically engineered to our unique conditions. Thatās what makes them a premium product.
UK manufacturers, Leyland in particular took the arrogant view that we were a captive market and we would have to accept what they deemed fit, despite having no idea of the conditions under which they had to operate. The marques that lasted longest, were those prepared to make allowances for the different to home operating conditions, no-one did that better than Aitkinson.
On the lighter end of the spectrum, look at British Leyland (Australia), itās amazing what they achieved, despite the parent company denying them development money and sucking every zac of profit out of them.
Keep making it up as you go.
Volvo was always a vertically integrated company. Australian operators retrospectively fitted RoadRanger transmissions and Hendrickson walking beam suspensions, purely on a cost benefit basis.
Around the turn of the century, Volvo did a short run of NH16s with Cummins Signature 600hp and 18 speed RoadRangers. This was because one of their biggest customers threatened to change to Kenworth. It only happened because the Australian Volvo management was the same, close family that were also the customer. A subsequent batch of same engined trucks were only available with a Volvo 'box.
A vastly different situation to what you have dreamed up and hung onto as fact.
Seems we were posting simultaneously.
My definition of a premium truck is one that will out last three or four sets of mechanical componentary.
A Cummins or Cat motor has a half life of ~500 or 600k kilometers. An in frame rebuild and set of mains rolled in will see reliable again.
Diffs and gearboxes are harder to put a lifetime on as they are far more dependent upon operating conditions, but also cheaper than engines.
It will be financially viable to fit a new, crate motor to a premium truck.
Quality trucks such as Scania and Volvo, will probably be viable with a rebuilt engine but start replacing gearboxes and diffs at dealer pricesā¦hmmm.
Beyond the initial engine rebuild, rust tends to claim anything European.
The likes of Bedford and Ford, itās doubtful that rebuilding is viable.
Most informative, SDU, thank you. The Iveco Eurostar of the '90s springs to mind. It had many attributes of a premium truck and certainly looked like one in the glossy brochures. Out in the field, the build-quality let it down very badly and the on-the-road back up was very sluggish [and thereās another factor: what truck can be called āpremiumā if 24-hr service means you have to wait 24 hours till the van turns up?]. After 1m kms, if the truck ever lived that long, you were left with a collapsed chicken shed with a 14-ltr lump that was still ready for the next million kms. Not a premium truck then 
!
My distinction twixt premium trucks and super trucks is probably something of a red herring in the light of your excellent definition above.
Acco 3070, a cheap truck with a good spec. Cummins V(or VT) 903, RoadRanger of choice and 38,000lb Rockwell on Reyco 4 spring.
The successor, 2670, Cummins BC of choice, RoadRanger of choice, 40,000lb Rockwells on four spring (I think Hendrickson walking beam was an option).
I had one of these with the 400hp and a nine speed that I changed for a 13 speed. It was an incredibly honest truck.
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Is there a stand out truck in Australia now SDU? I mean by this is there a much sought after vehicle that holds its price and never stays up for sale long second hand.Over here anything with a V8 Scania engine seems to command silly money
Letās get this right replacing a standard fit OE Volvo synchro box with Fuller for cost benefit reasons doesnāt mean the Fuller is superior.
A licence locally made KW with KW chassis and cab and Hendrickson bogie and typical CAT,Cummins/Detroit engine and Fuller or Spicer American driveline is a totally different truck to a US made KW.
Although the Range Change Spicer that needs to go through neutral for every shift certainly is a bit special.
Thatās a wierd definition of premium.
IE F7, DAF 2500, Scania 80/90 series generally day cabs, Bedford TL, or TM narrow day cab 500 or 6v71 engine = fleet vehicles ?.
F10/F12, 2800/3600, 112/140 series sleeper cabs , TM 8v71/6v92/8v92 full width sleeper cab = premium.
Premium v Fleet was always the industry definition that I knew.
To add the F88 cab was 75āā overall.
I think 90āā overall would be a general rule for a standard mid 70ās KW sleeper cab ?.
Tell us more about the Range Change Spicer box.