For Iveco Australia boss Glen Dyer the task ahead is a large scale one.
The Italian owned truck and commercial vehicle maker has been suffering from dwindling sales in this market for the past five years or more.
In fact the company is on track to only sell around 1300 trucks in Australia this year, down from the 1891 it sold in 2024, with some serious falls in heavy and medium duty with even the venerable and usually reliable Daily range of vans and light duty cab chassis trucks down on previous highs.
Dyer who took over the helm of Iveco Australia four years ago from former CEO Michael May, when the latter was called up to move to Iveco HQ in the Italian city of Turin seems resolute in the task.
May, the former Daimler Truck Australia exec, who ran the Mercedes truck brand before being drafted to run Iveco Australia, was in charge of the company when Italy decided to shut the Australian production facility at Dandenong and move to a full import model.
For all of the travails, Dyer is still optimistic about Iveco in Australia as he told Truck and Bus News in an interview with him recently.
Dyer is another immigrant from the Daimler empire having been involved in sales of the Mercedes van range and a whole myriad of experience in the trucj industry across a number of manufacturers.
The Iveco boss told us that supply has been a big issue for the brand since COVID and believes that now the company’s manufacturing base in Italy and other northern hemisphere countries can deliver strong supply, particularly with a new incarnation of the brand’s Eurocargo medium duty. The Eurocargo is set for an overhaul in 2026, after Iveco pulled the covers off it to reveal the new truck at this year’s Brisbane Truck Show. He is confident the company can improve volume and market share in the medium sector.
“The new Eurocargo will be here next year and will have an impact on the sector and the market,” Dyer told us.
“It will be an impressive truck and we believe buyers will embrace it,” he added.
It is accurate to say that the Iveco medium range, in particular, has been underperformed in terms of sales in recent times and so far this year it has registered just 68 sales in the sector, behind even Hyundai and not far ahead of Mercedes and UD.
As a point to emphasise the fall of Iveco and its previous local incarnation, International, just remembver that prior to Isuzu ruling the roost at the top of the sales charts for the past 38 years, the previous best seller was in fact Iveco/International.
By comparison that now perennial market leader Isuzu, has sold just over 2800 trucks so far in 2025, while Hino has moved 1851 medium duty till the end of October, and Fuso 750.
It’s clear that Dyer and his relatively small team at Iveco really have their work cut out for them.
Dyer was very specific that he couldn’t answer any questions about the recent buyout of Iveco by Indian automotive giant Tata Group. The purchase will mean control of the brand will shift from Turin to Mumbai in India, leaving the Fiat and Agnelli empire.
At this stage it seem there is still some way to go before the detail surrounding the purchase is finalised, and how the integration of Iveco, which is ranked number four in European truck makers, will see it become part of the Indian conglomerate, and how it will eventually work.
“We can’t say anything at the moment, partly because the details are still being worked out and we will just have to wait and see how the whole thing works in reality.” he told us.
Iveco in Australia has at least had some clear air in recent times with the company going back to a self-management model, after several years under the control of the Agnelli owned agricultural equipment manufacturer, Case New Holland.
Dyer wouldn’t be drawn on the previous arrangement but it is clear Iveco is now run more as a truck company and not a farm implement maker.
Dyer is also confident that the team at Iveco along with the dealer network can lift both Eurocargo and the flagship S-Way heavy models with revisions and improvements coming in 2026.
“With Eurocargo our focus will be on core segments, and we’ve had really good interest and questions from our waste, municipal, and street sweeper customers who we’ve dealt with long-term,” Dyer said.
The Iveco boss as much as admitted, that the newer Acco models, virtually badge engineered version of its S-Way models, which have been marketed here since the demise of the aged and long running Australian built Accos, have generally failed to impress the market. Many buyers have turned away because the imported Accos simply weigh too much and lack the versatility of the old locally designed and built models.
Dyer believes many of the new Acco’s shortcomings have been fixed and that the high tare and other aspects have been rectified and these have also beenhelped by changing local rules.
“We are looking to expand into some other areas we’ve not tackled in the past and we have just finalised a tipper spec model and the way that the new truck has been redesigned and reconfigured,” he said.
Similarly the new revised Eurocargo will, according to Dyer, impress buyers with its overall finish and quality.
“The interior has a much nicer feel and I reckon we’ve got a good opportunity to be more competitive in the sector with the new features and I reckon it’s going to give us that extra push,” he said.
The company’s heavy duty range has clearly also underperformed but Dyer reckons this can be turned around and sales can improve dramatically in the future.
“What we’ve found are customers who have bought a 460, or have run some 460s, are coming back,” he said.
“With the market decline we wish we’d sold more, but the feedback on the product and the reliability means the outlook for the future is bright.
“I’m really pleased in the move from X-Way to the S-Way, and I believe we really see this as our opportunity and what we have found is that we have customers who have run 460s, are coming back,” said Dyer.
“The market has been dipping overall and we wish we could have sold more but the opinion on the product and its overall reliability gives us hope that the outlook for the future is strong,” he added.
Dyer told us there are also some revisions to Daily which will include pushing into market sectors that Iveco hasn’t really attacked with the Daily before.
“In the van space we’ve still got some work to do to get into some of the bigger fleets and the key now is pushing the product to the next level,” he said
“We’re tradtionally had very strong share in the campervan and motorhome market, and in fact we are almost the ‘go to’ brand in this sector.
“However the next focus is to actually push into other segments that we’ve not really been in,” he said.
He also believes there are more sales to be made from the Daily cab-chassis, and told us the 7.2-tonne GVM chassis is the only light truck that anyone can get in that space.
“It is absolutely unique and it’s an area where we want to focus because we know a lot of the European cab-chassis light trucks are maxed out at 5.5 tonnes meaning a lot of operators running them are absolutely on the limit with payload.
Dyer says the past couple of years, since he put his feet under the CEO’s desk at Iveco have been a bit of a whirlwind, but adds that the brand is yet nto be vindicated by the new model range which we are really pleased with, and it’s already been very well received. So definitely exciting times ahead.
Daily may be Iveco’s best performed model in this market, but the relatively low yield light duty truck and heavy van models don’t bring in big profits like heavy duty and to a lesser extent medium duty models. Only time will tell if Glen Dyer and his team can turn around the good ship Iveco in Australia or it it is doomed to sink when its new Indian owners take over and potentially look for better performance from its offshore subsidiaries. he definitely has a job ahead of him and we wish him luck.
