Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

Nice MAN 10 x 8 truck with 35 tonne knuckleboom crane, and as you can see it also can drive sideways.

 

DAF pulling diesel locomotive

 

I don't think any of the european (or american, maybe the GMC Astro is closest in that respect) trucks of that era had the same rounded cab corners specially when looking at windscreen level. Lower cab corners of european cabs were rounded, but much smaller radius.
Higher up (windscreen level) they were quite angular.

If you compare the pictures below, you will see the difference.







The gap between cab and trailer is indeed an aerodynamic nightmare.
Typical North American fleet trucks with high trailers use cab extenders and high roof cab or high deflector as well, but with the shorter kingpin settings as used in North America it is not possible to get the trailer as close to the cab as with the european king pin settings.
With shorter king pin setting the difference between king pin setting and radius of front trailer corner is bigger than with long king pin setting.
When turning, the corners of the trailer will hit the cab much faster with short king pin setting (when trying to get the shortest cab-trailer distance when straight)

For example (assuming 100" trailer width for ease of calculation):
King pin setting of 63", the radius of the front corners to king pin is 80.5 inches, so (in theory) you only need a back of cab - trailer gap of 17.5", to avoid hitting the cab with corner of trailer when turning.

King pin setting of 36", the radius of front corner to KP is 62", so you need a gap of 26".
King pin @ 18", radius is 53", so you need a gap of 35"


Dark blue: back of cab
Green: trailer
Black cross: king pin
Light blue: radius around king pin
Black vertical lines show difference in (theoretical) minimum back of cab - trailer gap
Clear to see that gap must be larger with short king pin setting.

 

Those COE Louisville's were ahead of their Time.. In My opinion..

 

Exactly, the bigger the radius the more shallow the swing curve ...

 

shorter truck is reason why we dont need rotator, wrecker can set itself comparing to other vehicle on different way.
considering that i dont have much knowledge for this i have asked friend last year about it. he says not too much need for this in EU except in mountains , price is main reason weight too. in germany truck with rotator is considered as crane and need permits.
he says in france there is about 50 of them, some in belgium and norway. lot in UK few in sweden and NL.

 

this is quite far from standard truck. it has custom built chassis initially made for crane instalation instead of standard frame with reinforcements and subframe.

 

300tonnes truck mounted crane, nothing impossible for italy...

 

it needs 35 tonnes counterweight, i think it is not able to move on site with counterweight (gross 88t), so its use is not very practical as it seems on first.