7Mary3

Yes, you ordered the truck from Ford with the propane fuel option, and the vehicle went to the upfitter after it was built for conversion, then it was delivered to the dealer. There was also a CNG option for a couple of years too.

Used to be a company called IMPCO, they made a conversion kit for gasoline engines. They are still around under a different name. Used to see 429 Fords and 427 Chevys set up like that. Those propane guys were pretty upset when the gas medium duty's went away.

Could be trouble if it is not settled quickly: http://www.detnews.com/article/20091027/AU...+is+in+jeopardy

Yes, a number of package cars were built on P-600 chassis through the 1960's. The majority here on the west coast were built on GMC P6T chassis, most with 292 6 cylinders, the later versions with 4.3L V-6's or that odd Cummins/Onan diesel. UPS was buying so many of those chassis that GMC continued to supply them to UPS after the P6T was dropped as a regular model. I was working for a company that was doing lot of CNG conversions back in the early 90's, and we got a contract to repower a bunch of the Cummins/Onan package cars with CNG fueled turbocharged 4.3L V-6's.

Must be referring to the Sprinter. Dodge has not built any stripped chassis since the early 1980's.

Not necessarily! Medium and heavy truck emissions regulations are based on the production year of the engine, not the model year of the chassis. Most manufacturers are 'banking' 2009 diesel engines, as they can be installed in 2010 model year trucks and not require SCR. Many manufacturers will offer non-SCR 2010's until their supply of engines manufactured before 1-1-2010 runs out. The depressed market is helping, most manufacturers are anticipating they won't actually have to start building trucks with SCR until second or third quarter 2010. And, anything introduced after 1-1-2010 will be a 2011 model year anyway. As for Mexico, right, lots of truck production as been headed there. The rumor I was hearing was that moving Chatham's production to Escobedo would require ending production of 'Blue Diamond' mediums. That remains to be seen, however. I will say that I don't think International would be willing to sell Ford the components needed to keep the current 650 and 750 in production should Ford want to move production of those trucks to KTP. But, keep in mind a Ford designed medium was rumored to be under development back in 2007. The thing is I don't see Ford wanting to get back into that market themselves unless they could expect to see 10,000 or 12,000 sales a year.

No, I don't think GM will be back in the medium duty business. I think that line will eventually be bought by Isuzu.

Medium duty sales are so bad across the board I expect that International and Freightliner will be the only domestic producers soon. Hino and Isuzu may stay in the U.S. market only because their world wide sales are strong enough to allow them to be profitable in the U.S. at a low sales volume. I heard something interesting the other day that GM's medium duty assembly line in Flint MI. has been 'mothballed' intact. That's very strange, usually assembly lines are disassembled right after the last vehicle is produced.

Is there any news out of Escobedo? There were some rumors that International was going to shift a lot of class 8 production to Escobedo from Chatham. There was some question what that would mean for 'Blue Diamond', but in any event I don't think it has happened yet. I still think a move back to Louisville would also mean an all-new 650 and 750, and I have not heard anything on that. I think the 650 and 750 are scheduled for a short 2010 model year, and in 2011 they 'updated' with a new grille and SCR, but that is it.

To be honest, I would like to see the current 650 and 750 go away, to be replaced by an 'in-house' Ford medium duty. I think (and many of my peers do to) that the current 650 and 750 are just about the worst medium duties currently on the market, and they pale in comparison to the older Ford medium duty trucks. One could make a good arguement that the current 650 and 750 are not even Fords anyway.

I think the 650 and 750 are probably on the way out. It is clear Ford has no interest in marketing the trucks, considering what they spend on advertising and the fact that they no longer have a dedicated medium duty factory rep. staff. I suspect if this truck line is making any money (which I don't think it is) the money is being made by Navistar, not Ford. As more of the former Ford/Sterling dealers go out of business, I think the sales of the 650 and 750 may fall off even more, as very few regular Ford dealers have any interest in selling or servicing these trucks. It doesn't look like Ford is picking up a lot of GM's business yet, but there are still plenty of new GM mediums out there to be had. Rumor is that Isuzu will be manufacturing those former GM mediums (they had their own version of the Topkick) starting sometime after the first of the year, and if that is true I suspect the loyal GM medium customers will be buying from Isuzu. Time will tell. Oh, and an F-750 mechanic's service truck? That would be a hard sell to my guys. They want Pete 330's ONLY!

One of my local dealers took an F-350 Crew Cab 4X4 Amarillo in on the 'Cash For Clunkers' program. It was pretty clean except for a stupid high lift kit, cheap wheels and a busted windshield.

Funny how the #1 Whiz Kid, Robert McNamara, was not mentioned.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. I don't recall a drop in Panther platform vehicle sales at that time, as with the Caprice the Roadmaster and Brougham were also discontinued. The Panther was without competition. Further, I don't recall a similar price increase in the prices of retail model Panthers at that time. Only the police cars. I was working for a medium-sized municipality at the time. As for what forces governmental agencies to buy what vehicles, usually they can't make changes very quickly. Specifications are written before bids are accepted, and often they can't be changed to reflect vehicle availability if a particular vehicle is suddenly dropped. Look at the mess that happened when International stopped shipping 6.0L Powerstrokes for Ford E series ambulance chassis. BTW- I strongly suspect the new Caprice will be more expensive than the current Crown Vic.!

Oh yeah, I remember back in January 1997 when the price of the Crown Vic. Police Interceptor jumped $4000 for no apparent reason other than the Caprice was gone. Boy did that move make a lot of municipalities upset.

Total B.S.. Mr. Hall forgets (or never knew) that some of the most successful patrol cars of all time were unit-body cars. The Plymouth Belvedere, Dodge Coronet, Polara, Monaco, and Diplomat, the AMC Matador, and the Chevy Nova were all unit body. I will say it again, it comes down to officer training. Since FWD and RWD cars handle differently in extreme driving situations, departments want to standardize on one or the other, so officers will not have to think during high speed chases what kind of car they are driving.

I think GM was intending to produce a U.S. police-spec. G8 all along. Holden Commodors in L.A.P.D. markings were spotted some time ago. Police cars are low volume, low margin (don't argue, I am a fleet guy). The profits are not much, but the cars are visible. Good for the corporate image. Until 1996, when both Ford and Chevy were active in that market, neither really made any money at police cars, but civilian sales of the Caprice/Impala SS and Crown Vic. at least made the platforms profitable. G.M. dropped the Caprice when retail sales dropped below 50% of total sales. That gave Ford some breathing room, and even allowed a little money to be spent to get the performance of the 'Police Interceptor' Crown Vic. up to the level of the 1996 LT-1 Caprice. The situation was a lot like the DC-10/L1011 story. My old man was in the aerospace industry (far back enough when it was simply the aviation industry). I remember well in the late 60's while Boeing was working on the 747, that both Lockheed and Mc.Donnell-Douglas were working on 300 seat intermediate range domestic airliners. They were looking to better the DC-8 Super 61, then the highest capacity airliner with about a 250 seat cabin. The DC-10 and L1011 were amazingly similar. Other than the mounting of the tail engine and Lockheed's use of Rolls-Royce engines the aircraft were essentially the same, and both sold in respectable numbers. And neither made a dime on them. The market for a 300 seat domestic jet was just big enough for one supplier to make a profit, not two. I think a similar situation to today's police car market. G.M. was waiting for Ford to exit (a likely event given the age of the Crown Vic. and low sales of the Marquis and T.C.), and to see how successful the Charger would be in law inforcement. I'll admit I thought Dodge had a winner in the Charger, but its small trunk, poor visibilty, and spotty quality control seems to have made it not the law enforcement car of choice. With Ford finally leaving the RWD police car market, Chevy will have most all of it to themselves, and a good chance to make some money at it. I'll bet if Ford were to bring the Falcon over G.M. would rethink their decision regarding a police G8, but I don't think that is likely. The advantage for GM is the G8 is already built in LHD versions and is certified for U.S. emissions and safety regulations.

Know what I think? G.M. was waiting for Ford to announce the Crown Vic. was dead.

You do the whole lifecycle cost Hino LCF vs. E-450 cutaway and I think you will see the Hino beats the Ford. The Hino will beat the Ford in fuel economy diesel vs. diesel and the resale is much better. Don't know about Ford dropping diesel E series either. I have heard rumors that something may be in the works

Probably more than wanted the Ford/International LCF. But still not too many. Isuzu/GM had a lock on that market, but it remains to be seen what they are going to do next year.

I thought the auto shut-down was required in California on all diesels above a certain GVW, period. Also, some are saying the 2011 F-450 is not a real 450, just a modified F-350. You might want to be careful if you decide to wait for a 2011.

Nothing official. I heard from a guy in the towing/recovery industry and FWIW he says Ford's plan is to basically let the 650 and 750 die off. They will be dropped either when International decides to end Blue Diamond (they fully control it now) or sales drop. Take this with a grain of salt. Many in the industry are predicting medium duty sales will be the last to recover should the economy pick up, and thus are not expecting any sales increase in the medium duty segment for the foreseeable future. In other news, Hino is expected to reintroduce class 4 and 5 LCF's, and there are rumors that GM's medium duty line is not exactly dead. Stay tuned.

I don't mind the new dually fenders. They match the front fender flares. As for the grille, rmc523 did make it look a lot better by removing the 'clamps'. I guess those 'clamps' are going to be another odd styling cue that Ford will plaster on every truck line they make. Some are already commenting on the changes to the F-450. I have to agree, it really doesn't seem to be much different at all from the F-350.

True, but you don't want to introduce your latest thing at exactly the same time your competitor does. I figure if GM does have some changes coming for 2011, they would wait until the fervor dies down over the new Ford before introducing them.

Therefore an F-150 would be far inferior to a Ram 3500.