More than just a truck
When professional truck driver John Coenen talks about his MAN F2000, listeners quickly pick up on his true passion for trucks, his sense for the special things in life and the way in which he embodies the history of MAN.
John Coenen has been driving trucks professionally since 2008 and works for Bohnen Logistik with his MAN TGX XLX. John is a trained automotive mechatronics technician with an additional qualification in road haulage, but he is also a passionate tinkerer and crafter and has selected a very special vehicle for this hobby. The truck, which the 36-year-old has spent hours working on in his free time together with his friend Christian, is a MAN F2000 manufactured in 1999. To understand John’s connection with this truck, we need to go back to where his interest in driving was first sparked – his family’s transport company where he spent a lot of time growing up. In 1999, the MAN F2000 from Munich came to the family company in Niederkrüchten, halfway across the country, as a demonstration vehicle. John’s father passed away that same year, and the lion-branded vehicle was, as he puts it, “basically the first vehicle” that came into the company after this life-changing experience. It is one of the reasons why John decided to honour this particular truck.
Another reason is John’s passion for this exact MAN model, which to him represents the “connection between MAN and the lion” and which he sees as the last of a great generation of trucks that came before the modern trucks of today.
A big thank you to Bohnen Logistik
John tells us that the opportunity to continue operating the MAN F2000 was also thanks to his employer, Bohnen Logistik. The company initially purchased the historic vehicle for manoeuvring on the truck yard and as a mobile workshop vehicle. “During this time, I rebuilt the truck bit by bit together with my friend and we made sure, that the MAN could also return to the road,” remembers John.
Over a period of five or six years, the pair spent countless hours rebuilding the MAN F2000 in their free time. They replaced the gearbox and cab suspension, as well as countless “details”, and spent a lot of time fine-tuning the lion-branded vehicle’s look. According to John, they didn’t have a template to work from, but they did have a clear goal in mind:
“We wanted to keep it subdued and true to the time period when it was built.”
And of course one thing lead to another: Bull bars and lightbars were naturally part of sprucing up the MAN truck. And the MAN F2000 really is a beauty. It is so beautiful, in fact, that it nearly took part in a beauty contest recently. It wasn’t meant to be, due to organisational reasons on the part of the organiser, but John is not sad to have missed the opportunity: “I’m not looking to win any prizes with the truck. All that matters is that I like it.” But he would like his beautiful MAN F2000 to be seen, which is why he is planning on making an appearance at various truck meets and similar events.
The MAN F2000 also still makes public appearances on behalf of Bohnen Logistik. For example, when hauling the company’s party container to the ADAC Truck Grand Prix at the Nürburgring to provide a touch of nostalgia there for the special truck generation of which it is such a strong and resilient example.
