F82 and F83

When the great 'System 8' renewal of the Volvo truck product programme took place in 1965, there were two models which were kept practically unchanged.

These were the F82 and the F83, named in accordance with the other new trucks, i.e. with an 'F' to designate Forward control, with an '8' to designate that they did belong to the new programme, and with '2' or '3' to designate whether they were the direct successors to the L42 or L43 families of trucks respectively.

No changes needed!
The fact was, of course, that the introduction of a diesel engine into these trucks in 1963/64 had actually converted them into quite efficient transport tools, and the forward control model offered favourable axle loads together with long platforms within relatively short total vehicle length. So there was really no reason for changes to be carried out on these trucks, especially since the numbers made were too small to make the design of a Volvo diesel engine in this class economically feasible.

The petrol-engine remains
There were still customers around who preferred good performance to low fuel consumption, so the petrol-engine option 'B36AV' (the powerful Volvo V8 engine) was retained, designating the petrol-engine versions of these trucks 'F82B' and 'F83B' respectively. This was not really surprising, since the distances covered by these trucks were sometimes as low as 20 to 30 km per day, distances where of course the fuel cost was of lesser importance even considering increasing fuel prices and the high consumption of the V8 B36AV engine.

The diesel engine was originally made by Ford, but in 1967 a more powerful Perkins diesel engine was substituted. This was later carried over to the F82S/F83S trucks in 1971 and to the F4 in 1975.