Being a motoring journalist, you do get to drive some powerful machines around, even those with six-cylinder engines. But yesterday I drove for a little bit a turbocharged V6-engined behemoth that could out-Phantom the Phantom. And it was a Mercedes too! This machine had all of 12,000cc to play with, and 394 horsepower and about 186 kgm of torque too. As also 16 - yes, 16 - forward gears. Okay, enough playing around. It was not a passenger car, but a truck. DaimlerChrysler India launched two variants of their Mercedes-Benz Actros tipper in the country for mining applications.

Sitting on the special air-suspension driver’s seat of the Actros 4840K, the world is your playground. With an automatic gear selection process, the Actros’ ‘Telligent’ gearbox does the thinking for you, so all you need to do is steer. And steer it does, with control going to the first two axles, which made my fully loaded truck breeze past curves.

It was a cinch to drive, if you take into consideration how big the machine is and how much the loading bay is carrying. A neat display gives the driver all the information the driver needs, including which gear he is in and which is the economical zone he should be in. I also espied some bits from Mercedes-Benz passenger cars also tucked in the cabin here and there.

Hmm, I wonder if iron ore knows that it’s being pampered by nothing less than a Mercedes-Benz!