Wester Ross Fisheries’ new FUSO Canter 7.5t truck.
West Highlands-based salmon farmer Wester Ross Fisheries has just replaced its four-year old 7.5-tonne FUSO Canter with a like-for-like replacement, highlighting the firm’s satisfaction with this no-nonsense light truck model.
One of the Canter’s biggest strengths over European models is its superior payload — Wester Ross’ new flat-bed Canter has a 4,085kg payload, which is, as Gilpin Bradley, the firm’s managing director points out, “as good as it gets for a 7.5-tonner”.
The new Canter is fitted with a 20ft alloy platform body and is a range-topping 7C18 model, with a 175hp engine and DUONIC automated manual transmission.
The truck will be used for general purpose duties, and undertakes a wide variety of tasks, such as moving pens and other materials between sites, all of which are within an hour’s drive of each other, collecting ice used when harvesting, and transporting fish for primary processing.
Although the Canter’s cab may not offer the level of sophistication found in European truck models like Mercedes’ own Atego, its compact dimensions and light weight are far more important for this kind of short-distance, rural work.
Discussing his latest purchase, Wester Ross Managing Director Gilpin Bradley is keen to emphasis that the Canter’s class-leading payload remains its key attraction:
“We switched to our first Canter because it offered a significantly higher carrying capacity than our previous vehicles. This remains our most important consideration and with its lightweight body our new truck has a payload of 4,085 kg, which is as good as it gets for a 7.5-tonner.
“We specified the higher output engine on this occasion because there are a lot of hills in this part of the world and we didn’t want the vehicle to be working too hard. Our last Canter was exceptionally reliable and I’m confident the same will be true of its successor.”
Wester Ross Fisheries is Scotland’s oldest independent, owner-operated salmon farm, and unlike many of its competitors, all fish are hand-reared — not simply monitored by cameras and machines.