Rock solid and carrying rocks. That’s the Western Star 47X you see here, though it was actually carrying gravel: about 30,000 pounds or 10 yards of it, a little light for a “quad” dumper common in Indiana and Wisconsin, among other states, but it made this test drive somewhat realistic. We were at the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where I drove this 47X and other vehicles around a freeway-type paved track. The 400-acre facility includes streets and roads, some former municipal byways and others constructed since the place was established five years ago.
Staffers from Daimler Trucks North America were showing off the new 47X, the considerably improved successor to the popular 4700 vocational model, along with several other offerings from ‘Star and its sister brand, Freightliner. This dumper was painted metallic green with geometric box- and triangle-graphics on a gloss black trapezoidal field that stretched back to the R/S Godwin dump body. Compared to the earlier 4700, the 47X’s styling is bolder, particularly the stainless steel grille, with its vertical bars canted inward at the top, where it meets the leading edge of the composite-material hood and the nameplate, a big W with a maroon star. The squinty LED headlamps give it a look of a big cat on the prowl.
Read Berg's evaluation of the Western Star 47X here.