7Mary3

GM has talked to Isuzu about commercial trucks before. In fact, GM assembles most of the Isuzu commercial trucks sold here in the U.S.. This is all speculation right now, but I personally think a GM/Isuzu deal is likely at some point.

I remember those 'plain jane' F-800's. They were all 2 axle 5.9L Cummins powered, came in about 4 wheelbases and 4 colors. Allison transmissions, air brakes and air conditioning were about the only options. They actually were built in Mexico (at least all of them that I saw). Quality control was a bit loose. It will be interesting to see what is announced in October.

They squeezed a tiny bit more out of it for '09, now it's an even 360/380. BUT, don't forget the slightly larger 6.2L in the Denali's, Escalade's, and some of the light duty pickups is 403/417. There are rumors GM will up the power of the gas HD's in 2010.

I am starting to wonder if all the hype about the 'Boss' is going to be justified. From what I have read in these forums and heard from others, the 'Boss' isn't really much more than a 2 valve Triton with greater bore spacing. Not to say that the differences are not going to be significant (greater bore spacing will allow much greater displacement, and the larger bore will not shroud the valves and thus make a 3 or 4 valve head unnecessary), but in all honesty it seems to me that the 'Boss' is just about going to make the Triton the equal of the GM LS and not significantly better. For instance, a big deal is being made of the 'Boss' engine's potential to go to 7L, and the LS is already there. I hope that the 'Boss' gets developed into something better than the competition, rather than something that just meets it. BTW- does anyone know what the bore spacing is going to be? An LS is 4.40".

My guess is that the Boss will beat the Triton 3 valve V-10 in h.p., but maybe not in torque. That will not matter much, as G.M.'s current Vortec Max 6.0L beat the 8.1L in h.p. but not torque, and it has not made a difference in sales. It is also likely that there will be improvements made to the Boss as time goes on.

Ford's turn-around is based on the European Fords being successful here. Remember that Ford has tried that several times in the past (Cortina, Capri, Fiesta, Mercour) and it has never been successful. The new Fords coming from Germany and England are supposed to be world class, and I have no reason to doubt that. But, it remains to be seen how typical U.S. buyers will react to them. Also, Ford's market share continues to slide. GM seems to be pinning their hopes of recovery on next generation parallel hybrids, like the Chevy Volt. All other things being equal, I have to say I think the Volt has a much better chance at success than European Fords do. We will have to wait and see........

I really don't think Ford is in any better shape than GM or Chrysler. Sure, Ford has more cash right now, but remember that Mulally mortgaged EVERYTHING, including factories and trademarks, to get it. If and when that cash runs out, there isn't anything left. GM has not done that as of yet, and has a lot left they could sell outright if cash became a problem. As for Chrysler, it all epends on how much Cerberus wants to spend. The consensus is Chrysler will merge again anyway.

O.K., I'll bite! When Freightliner (Daimler) bought Detroit Diesel from Roger Penske, everyone suspected that Detroit would become a proprietary engine for the N.A. Daimler truck brands (Freightliner, Western Star, Sterling, American La France, and Orion Bus). Everyone was right! It wasn't long before Detroit announced they would no longer be selling engines to other truck builders, though Detroit continued to supply some fire apparatus and transit bus builders. Detroit is now fully integrated into Daimler Trucks N.A., and the new generation replacements for the 60 Series will share a common basic design with heavy duty diesels built by Mercedes Benz and Mitsubishi Fuso. With Daimler selling American La France off, I guess we will not be seeing any more Detroit powered apparatus. Caterpillar will not be selling ANY highway diesels after 2009, fire apparatus included. Cat chose not to spend the capital to design engines compliant with the 2010 standards. The Ford LNG/CNG F series! I was involved in that debacle. Ford wanted to offer dedicated CNG and LNG fuel options on the F truck in 1994. The trucks were 429 powered F-700's with vendor supplied factory installed gaseous fuel equipment, either CNG or LNG (not much different outside of the fuel tanks and calibrations). A fleet I was with at the time was very interested, and talked Ford into selling us 2 CNG prototypes. That's when the fun began. Of course we had a pretty good idea what we were getting into, and Ford made it very clear that the trucks were not ready for 'prime time', but let us have them because of our very extensive CNG experience. I personally believed that Ford was rapidly loosing interest in the project at the time for various reasons. Though we gave it a good try, the results were less than successful. We spent a lot of time with different calibrations and just couldn't get them to run consistantly. Always had driveability issues. We eventually scrapped the trucks, and Ford never placed the CNG or LNG options in production. It wasn't too much later when the 429 went out of production anyway. There were some good aftermarket CNG and LNG conversions for 429 powered F trucks, so there probably wasn't much of a market.

Good job, that was the article I read. I was been told by some people close to International that the deal was on hold and may not happen last month, but as you can understand I didn't want to bring it up until it was (more or less) official. The GM deal is rumored to be a topic at Navistar's next board meeting later this month. Here's more on the subject: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews...20080820?rpc=44

A few of us have been talking about the future of the 650 and 750 Super Duty after 2009 when 'Blue Diamond' comes to an end. Does anyone have any ideas about the GM mediums? GM was supposed to have sold the assembly lines for the medium duty trucks to Navistar, who was going to manufacture the trucks for GM commercial truck dealers. Word I am hearing now is that the deal is off. GM is still building the trucks in the Flint MI. plant as of right now.

As I remember, Hebe got started at Navistar (he was at ALF before they went belly-up the first time too). I have heard it said that the Germans put him up to the gauranteed buy-back deal because they had some crazy market share target, and when the house came down Hebe was he scapegoat. I thought it was crazy at the time, fleets were going for the deal and when they traded the trucks back in they were not replacing them with more Freightshakers.

There was a really good incentive to try Hino (or Sterling)- the 6.0L Powerstroke! Actually, I think Sterling is in a good position to take a lot of Ford class 3-4-5 sales right now. They have a very competitive product with a 'Bullit'-proof drivetrain that gets much better fuel economy than a similar Super Duty. Oh, and as I have pointed out before, often the Sterling is sold right at the same dealer peddling the Ford products. As for Hino, I hope Ford takes their threat seriously.

GM was going to have International build the Chevy Kodiak and GMC Topkick. The trucks were not going away, just the assembly plant was going to change. Last I heard, however, was the deal was off.

No, the GMC General wasn't a fleet truck, that was my point! GMC was trying for the O/O and small fleet market. Here on the west coast, they did get some acceptance. A place I was working for had one in their fleet though. Funny story, it was a long wheelbase tractor with a Stinger crane that was used to pull a heavy flatbed. I think the salesman sold them on the idea that the truck had to have such-and-such a wheelbase and cab-to-axle, and only a General would work. Anyway, the thing was your standard at the time NTC-350/Roadranger/SQHD on Hendrickson deal. It was really a good truck for them, had it for years. You are right about the railroads taking a lot of distance freight from trucking. So much in the Los Angeles area they are talking about building a massive 'inland port' to handle all the containers coming in from the port and get them onto trains. We don't hardly see TOFC (trailer on flatcar) here anymore, it's all double stack. I remember those HN-80 ads, along with the 'Together we will run the country' campaign. Again, I think Ford was trying to go where the money was. As for the door hinges on the Louisvilles, I was at this public utility in the mid-90's, and they got some of the last L's built. They had some BIG dudes working there, and when they got in the trucks, they would pull themselves up by that slanted chrome handle on the inside of the door. Eventually, the upper hinge would pull out of the pillar. That fleet also had same year Topkicks and F 700's. The Topkicks would need to have the little $2 bronze bushings in the welded-on hinges replaced, the F trucks would just need new hinges. As for James Hebe, what did he know!

I just hope for Ford's sake Toyota never comes up with a decent looking Tundra, or 3/4 and 1 tons, diesels, ect..

Great. I remember TUPY: http://www.cumminsdatabase.com/read.php?id=185

I am going to have to try not to write a book here. Ford was active in heavy trucks from 1961 to 1996. During that whole time, Ford occupied the lowest priced position in that market. Ford's competition historically was International and GMC, both makes usually priced slightly higher. Being the low priced competitor indeared Ford to fleets everywhere, as most fleets emphasize purchase price over everything else. Another important factor was the Kentucky Truck Plant. Almost without exception, Ford could fill a heavy truck order faster than anyone else. Again, a very important factor with fleets. As for the trucks themselves, well.... I'll be polite and say that I don't think they are missed all that much. No, I can't recall any frames breaking, but everthing else sure did! I have some 'fond' memories of the 'wet noodle' shifter on the C series (loved the look of those things regardless), the L series cabs with the horizontal instrument cluster that would collect dust obscuring the gauges, door hinges that would pull out of the pillar, that horrible driving postition, and the flagship CL-9000, air ride cab gently swaying back and forth as it rolls down the highway to its next major electrical failure. But for the most part, they would do the job they were supposed to do at a good price. But I think that was their downfall. Though Ford tried (with the CL-9000, LTL-9000, and the various Aeromax models) to get into the more profitable higher end class 8 market, they just couldn't do it. Couldn't shake the stigma of being a cheap fleet truck. I think International did better with their Eagle models, and the GMC's General was successful as well. Saw a number of those trucks dolled up by owner/operators back in the day, but never any Fords. Even so, I had high hopes for the HM-80 series. I thought that Ford might have a contender with those trucks, but they were never given a chance. Did you know that Ford had developed and even built a prototype of an HM-80 long nose 'large car'? They were going to go after those O/O's and small fleets that buy fancy higher priced trucks. Unfortunately, with Freightliner bought Ford's heavy truck division, they were going to market Sterling strictly as a vocational truck, and the long nose prototype was scrapped. It was shown at a couple of trade shows, and I know a guy that saw it. He was impressed. Should Ford get back into class 8? Would be neat to see, but I don't know how they would ever be able to break back into the market. Maybe if Ford becomes profitable again, in the future they could consider buying an existing class 8 truck manufacturer.

By far, I see the most International medium duty trucks. Second place would have to go to either GM or Freightliner. The municipal fleets have been buying a lot of GMC's lately, and Freightliner might have slipped slightly. Don't see too many Sterlings, and when I do they are mostly vocational class 8. Don't see a lot of Fords anymore, other than F-550's. BTW- expect to see a ton more GM's. I don't know what experience you may have trying to buy a GM class 6 through 8, but in the past it was often a long process, with lead times sometimes running 8 months. GM seemed to never want to run the medium/heavy line more than one shift, no matter how many pending orders they had. With Navistar taking over production, that should change dramatically. They really want to sell those things.

Back to the topic- does anyone know what Ford's commercial vehicle plans are?

Shouldn't bother them a bit. Remember that AMC/Jeep was owned by Renault from 1978 to 1988, and Daimler Benz from 1998 to 2008.

I think you might be reading a bit more into that story than there actually is. It looks to me like Chrysler is trying to find a way to do something with the sadly uncompetitive Sebring/Avenger 'on the cheap'. Basing the successor to these retal cars on the Altima might result in a very good product. Nonetheless, I think at some point Cerberus will sell Chrysler to another auto manufacturer, and Nissan would be a likely buyer. You have to admit that a Nissan/Chrysler/Renault combination would be a serious competitor.

I am hearing no more manual transmissions in the Super Duty after 2009. Can anyone confirm?

Profitable European and Chinese operations, lots of real estate and other capital for secured loans, ect.. One analyst estimated that GM could raise enough to give them about 41B total. Ford did borrow under more favorable conditions, but secured loans would have decent terms even today. But, like I said, this is a silly arguement. Both Ford and GM are in very serious trouble, and there is a good posibility one or neither will make it.

Silly arguement. GM is loosing more, but they have yet to mortgage eveything as Ford has done. If GM runs out of money, they can get more. Ford can't. Both will make it into 2010. Unless things improve substantially by then, they are both toast.

I hope so, but for how long? I guess eventually Ford will either offer the large Transit or maybe fit the 4.4L in the E series.