RoadwayR

Stab in the dark time: I seem to remember that Dodge had a resident heavy truck genius engineer and I think his last name was Sztykiel. If so, wasn't he one of the guys that started Spartan in the 70's?

Dealers? Mack has dealers?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ford-motor-southamerica-heavytruck/ford-exiting-heavy-truck-business-in-south-america-idUSKCN1Q82EB That's a disappointment. While I don't believe there is any chance we will ever see the Ford-Otosan commercial trucks in the U.S., I thought the Brazilian-built medium duty Cargo would have been a great addition to Ford's North American commercial truck line-up. A Cargo with the new 7.3L gas engine would have been competitive with GM and Isuzu LCF's. In any event, Ford pulling out of Brazil is hardly a surprise.

We were told the 'excuse' for dropping the medium duty D series trucks was to make more motorhome chassis, but it probably had more to do with Chrysler's financial health and the fact they were dropping the B/RB V-8's in 1978. The D series mediums continued in Mexico as we have discussed here before. Heavy truck production for domestic sales ended in March of 1975. The excuse for that move was Chrysler didn't want to spend the money to meet FMVSS 121 (truck anti-lock brake standards), but I was told the Bighorn 900 did in fact have Bendix ABS. Another reason could have been cabs. Chrysler was having a hard time building enough truck cabs in the mid-70's after the 'Club Cab' Dodge pickup became such a success. Chrysler farmed out production of the old 'C' series cab to Checker Motors (taxi cab builder), but Checker had trouble keeping up with demand and quality wasn't too good (funny because Checker had been making pickup truck beds for GM for years). Couple this all with the weak dealer network and the result was no surprise. But what if Chrysler had bought Mack back in '64............

That's a CNT-800.

I think Dodge intended the 3208 to be an option in the 1978 D-800. My company was buying a lot of D-600's in '76 and '77. When Dodge dropped them, they told us it was so they could make more motorhome chassis. The 1974-1977 D series mediums were built in Windsor Ontario at the van plant, not Sherwood or Warren were the heavy and light trucks were built.

No Bighorn 900. Instead they came up with real winners like the Plymouth Volare and Dodge Aspen. I thought they could have gone after all the Diamond Reo and Brockway dealers and given them medium-heavy Dodge franchises, phase out all domestic car production and replace them with Mitsubishi imports, kept the Ram pickup and van, and gone after Jeep. Dodge even had a great medium duty in the 1974-1977 D500-800. It was a tough good handling truck that had a big enough hood to take a Caterpillar 3208 (a few were actually built in 1977). I liked driving them. All they needed were dealers. In all of California I only remember 2 handling the big trucks, the Dodge Truck Center in Downey and Moss Brothers in Riverside.

This may be significant: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/ford-executive-raises-doubts-about-vw-deal-for-electric-vehicles.html Ford seems to be lagging in BEV's, and I thought their salvation could have been in partnering with VW. Ford could have benefited from VW's all-out drive for electric vehicle supremacy. It doesn't make sense, couldn't Ford and VW share BEV components if not vehicle platforms? Maybe VW just can't use that old train station or the ultra-hip Corktown facility. But VW sure-as-hell will use Ford's light commercial trucks...........

I liked them. Always wanted a Dodge C series or a Mack R-400 with the 'EN-414" Dodge 413 gas V-8.

Who knows, if it made it into production, Dodge might have sold a few. Personally, I think Chrysler should have given up on passenger cars in 1975, and concentrated on trucks. I remember hearing years ago that after Chrysler halted sales of heavy trucks in the U.S., they actually continued building small runs of long wheelbase CNT 800 diesel tandems until 1979 or 1980. Some may have been for export, but the story was Chrysler had a long running contract to supply tanker chassis to the Air Force.

It was a pretty serious effort, or at least as serious as Chrysler could do at the time. All the right hardware was there, just the old 50's era Dodge pickup truck cab was holding it back. And a weak dealer network. There was an even rarer '900' short nose Bighorn that was supposed to replace the CNT 900 in late 1975, but Chrysler bailed on the big truck business just as it was being introduced. I think only 4 or 5 were built.

Volvo Group, at least here in the U.S., has no concept of what a medium duty truck is.

Yeah, but Detroits are only offered in DTNA trucks (plus a few in Pierce fire apparatus). That's impressive. And, the mid-range DD5 and DD8 production is still ramping up.

I guess GM is going to keep the L96 6.0L in production even though it's about to be replaced in the Silverado and Sierra HD pickups. It is reported the Isuzu FTR/Chevy 6500 LCF will also get the 6.6L, I wonder if the NPR/Chevy 3500-4500 LCF will keep the L96.

Yet another LS derivative. Looks like not much more than a larger L96 6.0L with direct injection and a steel crankshaft. Decent output, should be completely reliable and durable. Probably not as powerful as Ford's new 7.3L, but better fuel economy. And, I'll bet GM spent next to nothing to develop the 6.6L..

Continuing the cab discussion as it applies to Ford. I don't see any chance at all of Ford developing a new medium duty cab considering their current economic state and CEO. The fact that the new 7.3L was made to fit in the ancient E series seems to support this notion. However, I think using the aluminum 250-550 cab on the 650/750 would at least be an improvement. It couldn't cost much to engineer, and one would think there would be savings through parts commonality.

I wonder how the Ford built HN80's compared to the Freightliner built versions.

I wouldn't doubt Louisville did build pool trucks before the medium/heavy line was dismantled. I was told F-700's started coming from Mexico sometime in 1997. I think Dallas and Mavis had the contract to haul them up from Mexico. We didn't buy any of the Mexican built mediums until the Blue Diamond days. Yes, heard the same story about Hebe and the creation of the separate Acterra franchise.

That was indeed the plan, there was to be a medium duty HN80 to replace the medium duty F series for the 1999 model year. When Ford abruptly sold out the HN80 in 1997, they continued the medium duty F's for a couple more years. Ford cleared out the medium/heavy line at Louisville and and brought up F-700's from Mexico. Those trucks were junk, limited options, Cummins 5.9L only. Freightliner eventually created what would have been the 1999 HN80 medium duty when they brought out the Acterra line. In 2003 Ford stuck a Super Duty cab on the Mexican F-700 chassis for 2 years before giving up and letting Navistar build them a medium duty. Regardless of who built them, HN80 was a pretty big disappointment. Best way to describe them was a poor execution of a good design. Even if Ford had not sold the design to Freightliner, I don't think they would have amounted to much. I remember hearing horror stories from the fleets around here that ran Sterlings. Rare to see one now. BTW- the really interesting HN80 was the long-nose line-haul conventional Ford was planning. One was built, and it was shown only once. I don't remember what truck show it was, but it was right before the Freightliner announcement. Of course Freightliner didn't go through with it, they wanted Sterling to be a vocational line. A friend of mine saw the truck in person. Wonder whatever happened to it.

That was the plan, but..........

I like a larger cab on a medium duty truck. However, I was told a lot of the market research indicated that many medium duty ruck users are concerned with overall cab height. I imagine GM and NAV considered that along with the economies of using an existing pickup truck. I know tow truck operators that didn't like the old Kodiak/TopKick 4500/5500 because they would not fit into many parking structures.

Jeep did offer the AMC 304 in the CJ-5 Renegade in the early 70's, and the 304 continued as an option in both the CJ-5 and CJ-7 until 1979 or so. They had a lot of power for their weight, and since all later AMC V-8's were the same dimensionally, it was easy to swap in a 360 or 401 in a CJ. L.A.P.D. bought 100's of 401 Matadors, and when they started showing up in wrecking yards the Jeep guys were all over them! The Bronco did have the 289 and 302, but swapping in even a 351 Windsor was tough because the deeper oil pan interfered with the front crossmember and the 351 was taller. Someone eventually made a special oil pan and pickup as I remember. Nonetheless, I think the first gen. Bronco had the CJ's and Scouts beat. The K/5 Blazer was a different animal entirely, and I was sad to see Ford drop the original Bronco and replace it with a somewhat lame copy of the K/5.

This is the scariest thing I have seen in a long time. This guy's head is really in the clouds. He is probably right about some of it, but what does he think Ford's role in future transportation really is? Ford is a heavy manufacturing company, not a tech firm. Seems like he wants Ford to be something it isn't, and no number of train stations and ancient factory-turned-creative-lofts are going to turn it into a tech firm. Vehicles will still be needed, many will be BEV's and AV's, and someone will still need to build them. The rest of it belongs to the Silicon Valley, and it's not like this guy came from there! I really hope he surprises me and proves me wrong, but............

I think it was 'Motor Trend', now that you mentioned it. Maybe some pro-Tacoma websites too. Saw the Ranger at the L.A. Auto Show, it looked nice but not really outstanding. I hear it's 4 cylinder gas only (though turbocharged), and rumor is it's a real SOB to work on. No diesel, no V-6 might hurt it, but I don't think those options are really necessary.

Some of the first reviews and road tests have not been too complimentary, but I hear this Ranger is something of an interim vehicle. An all-new Ranger is supposedly in the works.