Red Horse

Kevin- thx for info. Never would have guessed this effort could have stood on its feet given the market size. And Navistar with its own new HX series will not be a factor in AUS market?

So with the US Cat/Navistar truck "adventure" over, are these " Cats" old inventory or is some sort of Australian production still in place? If so, it would seem the volume would be such that they are as close as you can get to a "hand built" truck. They can make money doing this????

Hmnn- I thought the saying was......."Something's rotten in Denmark"

Looking good Rich- I dunno-that beautiful red frame just might look good with something other than flat blacK????

GA Dave, Mack58B42, and FxFymn, Thx-all good points- I guess the one that really got me thinking was 86 Mack from Bargaintown NJ. Looked like it might have been a purpose built tanker and I'm thinking-"ok -30 years old-but did it respond to every call? Garaged? Well maintained?." Likewise a shot of a 93 CH-but granted it was pulling a 59 Heil! As for the danger of liquid loads, good points- but most MC 306 tanks were built for gas (6.2 pds/gal or distillate fuels-heat, diesel @ 7.2 pds. In an 80,000 lb state this usually meant an 8500 gal gas load or a 7300 gal distillate load. Now water would equate to about 6500 gallons. And the safe way to do that would be to run the smallest compartment empty- and typically most 8500 gal tanks would have a 900 to 1100 gallon compartment as the smallest. My guess would be however, that the inexperienced would light load all the compartments-creating the most slop-that is if they paid attention to weight laws. In any case, absolutely correct in terms of the dangers of a liquid load. "Mass in motion" was a catch phrase we used- take a corner too fast and guess what- that liquid load would climb up the tank shell dramatically changing your center of gravity. Which of course accounts for most of the tanker off ramp accidents. For sure that is the one case where the driver explanation of why he wrecked the truck of..."the load shifted" is absolutely correct! Bottom line-nothing like good training and qualifying people for specific units-not a fireman but would hope that is the usual rule rather than exception.

I can understand how front line pumpers/ladders get retired. I am surprised though as to the number of tankers that seem to be retired at a relatively young age. Any logical answer? An aluminum petro tanker, or stainless milk tank? No DOT/EPA tightness test issues. And if you have bulkhead leaks between compartments-who cares?? No food grade issues in the case of a milk tank. Or do departments just want purpose built fire tankers these days?

Interesting that dump and tanker service are both excluded. My first thought is both of these applications typically operate consistently at the higher end of the GVW rating. Why would you exclude a significant percentage of class 7 sales???

I'm sure given the success of the Ford Transit, Ford is content to let FCA take this low bid

More like a crazy thought. Ford manufactures the 6.7 Power Stroke as well as a bunch of small diesels in Europe (as well as the 3.2 used in the new Transit- I think it's built in Spain) but no big bore engines-unless you count the Ford Otosan engines built in Turkey under license from Iveco.

If I were Cummins, the following statement from Clarke would have me looking over my shoulder.......We work very closely with them, and we anticipate that we’ll continue to offer Cummins products for a period of time. Let's see-every US class 7,8 manufacturer know has a vertical integration link when it comes to engines. Maybe its time Ford made a diesel engine aquisition. Seems like it was thirty or so years ago and the rumors were Ford was buying Cummins. If they could, that would put some sort of a nail I think in the FCA coffin.

Well I guess we should be thankful Crestview is an American company. Or is "New York based" just a code for.."whose owners are in China".

Kevin, I would say the issue still remains a preference for conventionals vs. cab overs with a lot of guys. Then again you have the "new breed". Case in point, when you can get say the same HP in a cab with say a 106 BBC, why would a guy want one with 119" BBC? But they do! Then they obscure forward visibility with a huge sunscreen and drive with the seat on the floor! I asked one guy one day why he drove with the seat in a low position (you can just see these guys peering over the steering wheel) and he said..."better visibility!" Duh!

For sure-let's hope they build the same truck here and not some Ridgeline "wannabe"!

Well what strikes me is the attention to the "large car" market with high rise sleepers featured in virtually all of the marketing effort. Did they notice the Old Dominion day cab tractor in the "big 12" customer base? I still say between the driver issue and double stack rail improvements, the intermodal business is going to overtake the business at some point in time. As for the exterior, I have to say, IMO it is much better than the existing Cascadia-and certainly better looking than the Volvo's. And no doubt, listening to the F'liner "brass", no doubt plenty of "accents" so there has to be a lot of Euro influence in these trucks. Also, no mention of Cummins, Eaton etc. Does that mean these products are not on option list?

Again, great info and a great thread. Bottom line is there a quick way to ID a "good" Superliner from an "also ran"? Vin cutoff no????

The Swan? Is that the joint southbound across from the trash to energy plant? No clue but one of my terminals was up the road on Marshes Dock rd. good troops in Linden-when I retired they gave me a gold Bulldog with an inscription.

Ah- M & G, a K car, and cast spokes on the C-900! talk about nostalgia. Only thing missing is Lee Iacocca in the background.

Very nice Rich. I assumed you would be cranking on the B but I would say "smart move" . That the original VW orange? the before shot looks every bit as good as you had described.

Well shame on me Rich-I finally discovered this thread-and looked at it from beginning- Outstanding job-you have been hiding your light under a bushel basket! And some of you asked early on if "66DC75" was going to be at the photo shoot at Macungie-he was-go to shot and two guys in lime shirts on left side of Mack (above "Big Mack" letters are Rich aka 66DC75 on left and shorter uglier guy to right is yours truly. Great job Rich-keep the updates coming-for sure will be at Lancaster on 10/16!

Good thought on the R inventory. They still working the pit opposite the piggy bank on 93?

Jim Nice post-this is one 61X that I have never seen south of the NH-MA line before-and as Maddog said-different front spokes --wonder if the front axle came from Global's inventory?

So you car haulers can verify. As a young supervisor I had a driver who in his prior life worked for NuCar out of the old Ford plant in Mahwah NJ. He would tell tales about dealers who gave him a hard time and his comment was..."if they gave me shit I promised them a load of camels". which he then explained were cars that were overly tied down creating "issues". I assumed pure bullshit. In anycase, everytime I see a guy in a dealer lot climbing up to offload I can't think of anything else as dangerous that OSHA has not stuck its nose into. And boy has that industry changed. I remember the big fleets-NuCar, Automobile Transport, M & G, Anchor, Boutell etc. Today it seems they are all small O/O type operators. I

Agree on vac shifted two spd-had same question. as for "brownie"-doesn't drive shaft go into that "box"?-which then drives axles??? Agree on a lot of spring weight but then again look how narrow they are. As for belt driven tags, when I started (1966) my company had a bunch of single axle B models that pulled 6500/7200 gallon tandem tanks. Weight laws changed and instead of buying new, we had Page & Page belt conversions. They were not around too long.

Seems to me when you look at the 760 and 761, it looks like you are splitting hairs vs Superliner. Don't know what the radiator size was on the Brockways but they had to be bigger-or at least had the potential to be bigger it would seem than an R Model. Also was the 12-71 ever offered in the 760/1? In any case Brocky's point on the labor issue foots with everything I have read. Then again, how many times have we seen this script repeated? Always the same result. One company buys out a competitor, keeps the flag alive for a while then the "synergism" issue kicks in. "Why do we need this duplication of staff? manufacturing resources? blah blah". Hate to say it, but think those questions aren't being raised in Sweden on a regular basis? Master stroke had to be Daimler. They gave idiot Jac Nasser at Ford 300 million-after Ford spent how many million redesigning HN-80? and in essence bought a consistent 20% share of class 7 and about 9 or 10% of class 8

Hah- Hobert-very good response. How about it KSC?