Standing some three metres tall and weighing around nine tons, the visage of the new Mercedes-Benz Actros – pleasing as it may be – is nonetheless daunting, made even more so by the multi-step climb up to the cabin.

Once inside, and seated in the driver’s office, it takes on a different perspective. There is a comforting friendliness about the environment along with a feeling of familiarity with the dashboard layout and steering not far different to any car or bakkie.

Getting comfortable is easy with the seat moving all ways except sideways and the steering able to tilt and telescope to suit – depending on the chosen unit and specification this can be either manual or electric operation.

The dashboard itself is curved around the driver and finished with a black background. This gives the driver a feeling of being ‘encased’ in the work space – the passenger gets a lighter colour finish to their portion of the dashboard.

Everything the driver needs is then right where it needs to be for easy visibility and operation – most of which can be handled by buttons of the steering wheel to practically eliminate the need to take a hand off the wheel.

The task set at the launch of the Actros was for sould like myself to do a reverse slalom course, followed by a forward slalom and then a gymkhana route including a full 360 degree turn.

The cab itself has a width of 2 490 mm, length is 2 200 mm and interior height is  1 920 mm or,  with the low roof 1 560 mm.

A gentle press of the dash-mounted Start button and the 12,8-litre six-cylinder engine rumbles to life and truth time approaches rapidly. The massive frontal glass area provides plenty of forward vision and the selection of mirrors gives all the angles needed for going backwards – providing the driver is paying attention.

Unlike a car or bakkie where the front wheels are ahead of the driver, those on the Actros are directly below and first attempts at identifying exactly where the wheels were pointed turned out quite devastating for some of the course marking cones.

Doing the slalom forward was somewhat easier – on me, and the cones – and by the time I had completed the gymkhana course, I was wishing we had more time and able to have a ‘do-over’.

In reality, the Actros is absurdly easy to drive. There is a stalk on the steering column with a rotary switch that selects drive mode – forward of reverse – and the truck does all the rest as the systems process input from the driver.

The best illustration of how sophisticated these are came with a highway run with a professional driver pulling a tanker. As soon as it was possible (anywhere from 30 km/h) he selected cruise control and slowly upped to speed using that to get to cruising – this being smoother and more controlled than doing it via the accelerator pedal.

Even more impressive was coming off the highway where he decreased speed using the cruise control – the electronic systems quickly reacting to ensure the right gear at all time so, in conjunction with exhaust braking, the slow down process was efficient enough and smooth enough he put his foot on the brakes only to prevent the truck rolling over the white stop line.

Mercedes-Benz has claimed between 6% and 7% fuel saving with the new Actros but, making full use of the inbuilt systems could save not only on fuel, but on wear and tear as well.

It may have been a short drive experience but it was enough to put a smile on my face.