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Where big Fords once roamed


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Maybe it's just me, and the facts don't back me up, but every other medium and heavy truck here in CT is a GM or Sterling! I see huge paving dump bodies on GM and Sterling chassis. I see countless 4-door GM medium conventional chassis for fire apparatus. All these trucks should have a Ford oval on them and they would have if Ford hadn't been so dumb!

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Maybe it's just me, and the facts don't back me up, but every other medium and heavy truck here in CT is a GM or Sterling! I see huge paving dump bodies on GM and Sterling chassis. I see countless 4-door GM medium conventional chassis for fire apparatus. All these trucks should have a Ford oval on them and they would have if Ford hadn't been so dumb!

 

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.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I read in diesel power "no more kodiak". Wasn't sure if they were talking about just a specific production plant or the line altogether? Isn't the 4500 and 5500 still considered part of the kodiak line too?

 

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.

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The Navistar/GM deal? the whole thing is off? Rumor or a reliable source?

 

Here's something I found: Sale of GM medium-duty truck line now in question

 

GM said in December, when word of the agreement broke, that the memorandum of understanding it reached with Navistar could lead to a sale but that more work needed to be done.

 

Under the deal, Navistar was to purchase certain assets, intellectual property and the rights to manufacture the medium-duty GMC and Chevrolet trucks.

 

But since that time, truck sales have tanked as consumers and businesses have thought twice about investing more in new gas-guzzling vehicles.

 

Interesting...

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Here's something I found: Sale of GM medium-duty truck line now in question

 

 

 

Interesting...

 

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

Edited by 7Mary3
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  • 1 month later...

Just read somewhere that GM might sell the mediums to Isuzu. Also, I see UPS running new Sterlings WITH the "S" logo on the hood! What happened? UPS has always had a "no free advertising" policy and had no brand logos on the trucks. Did Daimler pay them to keep the logo on?

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Just read somewhere that GM might sell the mediums to Isuzu. Also, I see UPS running new Sterlings WITH the "S" logo on the hood! What happened? UPS has always had a "no free advertising" policy and had no brand logos on the trucks. Did Daimler pay them to keep the logo on?

 

It was announced last week that GM will not sell their medium/heavy line to Isuzu. Latest rumor is GM will keep the line for the foreseeable future, as the UAW would only agree to the sale if another truck line was moved into the Flint plant to take the Topkick/Kodiak's place. The new truck was rumored to be a 4500/5500 series using the current GM full size pickup cab. That truck as been put on indefinate hold. Another rumor is Isuzu may pull out of the U.S. commercial truck market anyway.

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It was announced last week that GM will not sell their medium/heavy line to Isuzu. Latest rumor is GM will keep the line for the foreseeable future, as the UAW would only agree to the sale if another truck line was moved into the Flint plant to take the Topkick/Kodiak's place. The new truck was rumored to be a 4500/5500 series using the current GM full size pickup cab. That truck as been put on indefinate hold. Another rumor is Isuzu may pull out of the U.S. commercial truck market anyway.

How about this one. A guy says to me on Friday, that he heard a CNN piece on Thursday night that "Ford was no longer going to build trucks and had signed a deal with Toyota to build for Ford in Indiana." I assumed this had to be 650/750 but have not seen any news stories. If that was the case, I would assume it would involve the Hino plant but I believe that is in Va.

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How about this one. A guy says to me on Friday, that he heard a CNN piece on Thursday night that "Ford was no longer going to build trucks and had signed a deal with Toyota to build for Ford in Indiana." I assumed this had to be 650/750 but have not seen any news stories. If that was the case, I would assume it would involve the Hino plant but I believe that is in Va.

 

Toyota has that plant in Princeton, Indiana that did produce the Tundra until all Tundra production moved to Texas. I seem to remember the Princeton plant was eventually going to build hybrid cars for sale in the U.S..

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