Dongfeng Dump Truck

The two-seater cabin of the Dongfeng Dump Truck features an all-grey theme, with the dashboard and door panels mostly covered in hard plastics. The dashboard, in particular, has a dual-tone grey and beige theme, though the layout and lack of features make the cabin feel dated. 

The Dongfeng Dump Truck’s driver’s cockpit has a curved layout behind the four-spoke steering wheel, with the centre console facing entirely towards the driver. Behind the steering wheel, which has silver accents on its spokes, the Dongfeng Dump Truck has a trapezoidal housing for the instrument console with traditional analogue dials. This instrument console has small AC vents beside it. 

The centre console, which faces towards the driver in a curved fashion, houses an open cavity with a 1-DIN audio system in the middle and switches for various functions, including manual AC knobs, to its right. The co-passenger side of the dashboard looks simple with a closed glovebox with AC vents to its upper sides. The panel between the front seats has differentiated housings for the transmission lever, cup holders, and storage bins, in addition to a broad armrest with storage space beneath it to its right. 

The medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks of Dongfeng are known for their huge and bold appearance, and the Dump Truck follows suit with an old-school boxy cabin design. The front profile of the Dump Truck is heavily influenced by rectangular elements.

The upper half of the Dongfeng Dump Truck has a slightly slanted windscreen which has mildly-rounded edges on all four corners. Coming to the lower half of the front profile, the fascia of the Dongfeng Dump Truck has a trapezoidal design with a trapezoidal grille within it. Featuring a large rounded Dongfeng logo, this grille has a thin strip of chrome running through its centre.

The sides of this trapezoidal fascia have vertical air vents, which further make the front profile of the Dongfeng Dump Truck look wide. At the bottom of the front profile is an unpainted black bumper with trapezoidal headlamps on the sides with rectangular halogen fog lamps below them.

Based on a traditional body-on-frame construction, the Dongfeng Dump Truck comes standard with a suspension combination of parabolic leaf springs with double shock absorbers at the front and two spring balance beam bogie with semi-elliptical leaf springs at the rear. This 6x4 medium-duty dumping truck has air brakes at both front and rear for optimal stopping power.

Both the variants of the Dongfeng Dump Truck share a common engine – a Renault-sourced 11.1-litre inline-six diesel engine, which produces a maximum power output of 385 bhp and a maximum torque output of 1800 Nm. Paired with a 14-speed manual transmission, this Euro-5 11.1-litre diesel engine of the Dongfeng Dump Truck enables it to have a top speed of 75 kmph. Like every Renault engine, this particular powertrain is also highly tractable and reliable in the long run, but noisy as the speeds rise. 

The Dongfeng Dump Truck, despite being an old-school machine, comes standard with modern essentials like ABS and cruise control. However, given the stiffer and rising competition in the form of more new-age trucks, we would have loved to see more safety features on board. 

The core strengths of the Dongfeng Dump Truck are its durable chassis with sturdy suspension and a reliable and tractable diesel engine, which gives it impressive performance and load-carrying capacity.