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TRATON Boss Says VW Truck Unit "Not Interested" In Acquiring Navistar FreightWaves / July 18, 2019 Navistar International shares fell nearly 6.5 percent on Wednesday (July 17) after the head of Volkswagen's trucking group TRATON said it was "not interested" in a full acquisition of Navistar. TRATON CEO Andreas Renschler told the German newspaper Handelsblatt that owning 16.8 percent of Navistar's stock and controlling two board seats is sufficient. We are very satisfied with our partnership with Navistar as it is," Renschler said. "To be honest, many takeovers – even in other industries – are unsuccessful." In 2018, Renschler said acquiring Navistar would be a "good idea." Been here before David Leiker, senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co., said TRATON, formerly the Truck & Bus Group of Volkswagen, has made similar comments since paying $256 million in September 2016 for its stake in Navistar. "In the past, comments suggesting a longer process for acquiring Navistar have created pullbacks in Navistar's stock, and today is no different," Leiker said. "We firmly believe TRATON will eventually acquire Navistar to maximize the synergies and financial returns from its investment." Geographic synergies TRATON began trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stockholm under the ticker 8TRA on June 28. That raised investor speculation that it would add Navistar to its MAN and Scania brands as it pursues Daimler and Volvo for global truck leadership. TRATON's core markets are Europe and South America. It reported revenue of 25.9 billion euros in 2018 with truck sales of 233,000 units. North America accounts for only 1.5 percent of TRATON's vehicle deliveries. It has about 81,000 employees and 29 production and assembly facilities in 17 countries. Navistar holds about 14 percent of the U.S. market for heavy- and medium-duty trucks. It generated $10.3 billion in revenue during its 2018 fiscal year ending in October 2018. Navistar's $3.3 billion market cap is roughly one-quarter of TRATON's value. The two collaborate on engine technology, the sale of engines and contract manufacturing. TRATON formed a strategic partnership with Japan's Hino Motors Ltd. in April 2018 to cooperate on conventional, hybrid and electric powertrains, connectivity and autonomous driving systems as well as purchasing and logistics. Toyota owns 50.1 percent of Hino. Investment timing TRATON's investment came at a critical time for Navistar. Its market share had cratered because of the defective Maxxforce engine that cost billions in recalls and repairs and damaged the company's reputation. Navistar recently set aside $158 million to cover a class action and other customer claims. Since the alliance was formed, Navistar has also benefited from TRATON's purchasing might. VW and Navistar said they anticipated five-year savings of $500 million from working together. "The alliance with TRATON is reducing costs through the procurement joint venture and cost-effective access to next-generation technologies," Navistar CEO Troy Clarke said on the company's earnings call June 4.

Ford to add 1,200 jobs, shift in South Africa Reuters / July 17, 2019 JOHANNESBURG -- The South African unit of Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it would hire an additional 1,200 workers at one of its assembly plants, an increase of more than 25 percent, to add an extra shift and boost production. The additional shift, which will increase output to 720 vehicles per day, is the result of a 3 billion rand ($215 million) investment in South Africa that was announced in 2017, aimed at increasing annual production to 168,000 units. Ford currently employs around 4,300 in South Africa at the plant in the Silverton suburb of Pretoria, which will add the extra shift, and at another site in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. "The third shift will allow us to ramp up our production from the current 506 vehicles assembled per day to a peak of 720 units to satisfy the strong demand from customers in South Africa, as well as for our crucial exports to 148 markets around the world," said Ockert Berry, vice president of operations for Ford Middle East and Africa. Ford joins a number of other global automakers in ramping up production on the continent, where growth is expected while trade tensions threaten manufacturing operations elsewhere. The South African arm Nissan Motor Co. also announced a similarly sized investment this year, increasing output at its local plant by 30,000 units, while BMW production chief Oliver Zipse said earlier this month that it had moved some production from the U.K. as a result of Brexit, and that British plants no longer built South African components. Around a third of Ford's locally produced vehicles are sold in South Africa and other sub-Saharan African countries, with the rest exported. The additional shift will start in August and will be focused on the new Ranger, Ranger Raptor and Everest models. The locally-built Ranger is ranked as the top-selling pickup in Europe and leads light commercial vehicle exports. .

It's a nice day to pour the foundation for a new Costco store - just park your Autocar ACX in the middle of the pad and reach the entire 360 foundation without budging. #AutocarConcrete #AlwaysUp .

Geez

Julian Borger, The Guardian / July 16, 2019 The US House of Representatives has called for an investigation into whether the spread of Lyme disease had its roots in a Pentagon experiment in weaponising ticks. The House approved an amendment proposed by a Republican congressman from New Jersey, Chris Smith, instructing the defence department’s inspector general to conduct a review of whether the US “experimented with ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975”. The review would have to assess the scope of the experiment and “whether any ticks or insects used in such experiment were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design”. The amendment was approved by a voice vote in the House and added to a defence spending bill, but the bill still has to be reconciled with a Senate version. Smith said the amendment was inspired by “a number of books and articles suggesting that significant research had been done at US government facilities including Fort Detrick, Maryland, and Plum Island, New York, to turn ticks and other insects into bioweapons”. A new book published in May by a Stanford University science writer and former Lyme sufferer, Kris Newby, has raised questions about the origins of the disease, which affects 400,000 Americans each year. Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons, cites the Swiss-born discoverer of the Lyme pathogen, Willy Burgdorfer, as saying that the Lyme epidemic was a military experiment that had gone wrong. Burgdorfer, who died in 2014, worked as a bioweapons researcher for the US military and said he was tasked with breeding fleas, ticks, mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects, and infecting them with pathogens that cause human diseases. According to the book, there were programs to drop “weaponised” ticks and other bugs from the air, and that uninfected bugs were released in residential areas in the US to trace how they spread. It suggests that such a scheme could have gone awry and led to the eruption of Lyme disease in the US in the 1960s.

Exactly. Paul told us in May 2018: "Things have been very crazy of late and very unsure of what the future will bring We sold our sugar cane farm in north Queensland after many years of trying and the wife and I decided we would take some time off and travel around a bit on a working holiday till we decide what we want to do" With such a huge change in Paul's life, it's no wonder he became less active. But he still loves us and we all love him. https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/53404-mrsmackpaul/?tab=comments#comment-399268 I am hoping that Billy is well. Never a kinder fellow.

Truck News / July 16, 2019 LISLE, Illinois – Navistar has enhanced its dealer resources by launching an engineering hotline. The hotline will provide International dealers with direct, rapid access to the product experts who designed the vehicles. The hotline can be reached through a simple phone call from any International dealer. Calls are immediately directed to an application engineer who listens to the dealer’s request and offers support. During a pilot phase conducted earlier this year, the hotline quickly amassed well over 100 calls from dealers, the company said. Typical phone calls ranged from general questions on severe service truck configurations to advanced, application-specific questions from customers.

Trans INFO / July 11, 2019

Paul is a great example. His life has had some changes down in Oz and he doesn't have as much free time as he did for a period. So yes, we hear from Paul less than before (I miss his great videos), but it's not because he's upset with anything at BMT.

Ford Trucks International Press Release / July 16, 2019 The Ford Trucks 4142XD's 12.7 litre Euro-6 "Ecotorq" engine: Built for power and endurance. #SharingTheLoad .

Gosh guys, how can you take a thread asking about Billy's well being (he's an older gentleman) and end up with hatred? We have the best truck website in the world.......I can tell you that. Now with so many wonderful members worldwide, the website can't meet everyone's vision of perfect every day all-the-time. If we all had exactly the same views.......the world would be an awfully dull place. BMT is not only a place for discussing old Mack trucks. It's also a place for discussing new Mack trucks, other brand trucks both new and old, and non-truck topics as well. You have the ability to choose what you want to view..........and what you don't want to view. For example, if you only choose to view posts about old Mack trucks, you can head straight to the "Antique and Classic Mack Trucks General Discussion" thread. You're in the driver's seat....you only need read what you want to read.

Your'e welcome. The synthetic brake fluids like Motul don't absorb moisture, and unlike the original synthetic brake fluids that the military used years ago are not spongy (pedal feel).

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"Diamond-T Line Model T9800B long nose conventional in process. Set-Back front axle vocational model capable of handling up to 600HP diesels. Glider Kits or Full Trucks. Accepting Orders Now." Joe Whitman

So.......even though she fails to show up for work 42 percent of the time.........our employees in Washington continue to employ and pay her.

One of President Donald Trump’s latest picks for the Federal Reserve, economic commentator Judy Shelton, has missed 11 of 26 board meetings, or 42%, of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in her first year as the U.S. representative, according to minutes of the meetings. .

I'm still trying to figure out how this company could possibly know what to sell you, to change from spoke to disc. Only a Mack dealer, or the Mack Specifications Department via a changeover request, could accurately determine what the truck was built with originally...........and what you would need to effect the change. If the springs are Mack, what is the 4QK number stamped on one of the two "T's" at the ends of the springs?

I'm sure the entire BMT family hopes that Billy is simply preoccupied, and not away because of illness. Billy is "good people".

Car & Driver / July 15, 2019 Ford will offer a pickup version of the upcoming Bronco to compete with the Jeep Gladiator. This is amusing given the Bronco SUV also will be based on the Ranger, meaning the Bronco pickup would be a pickup based on an SUV that is based on an identically sized pickup (the Ranger).

Volvo’s Mack exec not concerned about slowing truck demand James Menzies, Truck News / July 10, 2019 SEATTLE, Wash. – Class 8 truck orders have fallen sharply in recent months, but the folks at Volvo Group subsidiary Mack Trucks aren’t sweating. “I almost get the sense people are standing on the ledge, looking over and trying to talk themselves into a downturn,” said Jonathan Randall, Mack senior vice-president of North American sales and marketing. “We’re not seeing it. We’re not feeling it.” He characterized the current truck market as “hot,” despite lower orders in the first months of 2019. “The orders have fallen off significantly, but that’s expected,” he told the trucking industry press during an event here. “We can’t continue to fill an already full cup. The torrid pace we were accepting orders at six or seven months ago couldn’t continue. We knew that. That order intake dip is fully expected.” The good news, however, is that interest for new units remains high. There remains in place a solid backlog, and production is steady. There are also few cancellations happening. “Our orderbook is firm, solid and strong,” said Randall. Mack is sticking to its previously stated projections of a 310,000-unit Class 8 market this year for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Most of the demand is coming from the longhaul segment, where new truck registrations climbed from 44% in 2018 to 50% so far this year. Mack is well positioned to take advantage with its new Anthem highway tractor, Randall said. “The Anthem is getting us into more and more fleets,” he explained. Mack recently opened its orderbook for 2020 and demand is strong, Randall noted. “Demand is there because fleets are now starting to plan next year’s purchases,” he said. “The limiting factor seems to be people. Customers are saying ‘I’ll order 50, but I’d order another 20 tomorrow if I could hire another 20 drivers’.” With the Anthem, Mack is looking to strengthen its presence in the west, where big block engines and high horsepower are still highly sought after. Randall said Mack is aiming to educate fleets on the capabilities of its 13-liter engines. “A 13-liter is economically able to pull the majority of what needs to be pulled across the country,” he said, adding Mack has no plans to begin offering a 15-liter engine. Kevin McCann, operations manager with aggregate hauler Silver Streak Trucking, reaffirmed the capabilities of a 13L engine in the western market. “We actually outpulled a 600-hp Cummins with a 505-hp Mack,” he said of one of the company’s Mack Granites. “We made it back to the gravel pit and the comment over the CB was ‘My gosh, what kinda power do you have in that truck?’ It had to do with the truck, the operator, and the automatic transmission. We’re being noticed out there. There’s a lot of attention to what we’re doing and what we’re creating out here.” While the Anthem is getting Mack back into the linehaul segment in a meaningful way, Randall said the truckmaker’s goals in that segment are “modest.” “We know we are not going to be the number one player in that category, but we need to have a strong linehaul business because that’s half the market,” he said. “We expect to see strong growth.” .

Neil Abt, Fleet Owner / July 15, 2019 The Class 8 truck market remains “hot” and there are no indications of a significant downturn on the horizon despite a slowdown in orders this summer, according to Jonathan Randall, senior vice president of North American sales and marketing for Swedish truckmaker Volvo's Mack Trucks subsidiary. Randall made the remarks last week during media trip showcasing Mack’s growing footprint in the western United States. Volvo is still projecting 310,000 North American truck deliveries industry-wide for all of 2019, with replacement orders of sleeper models driving the growth. Orders have fallen but that was expected as "you can’t continue to fill an already fuel cup," said Randall, adding that some observers are “trying to talk themselves into a downturn.” Randall noted order cancellations remain low, a sign that fears of any significant slowdown are overblown. There is still a solid backlog to work from and production remains steady, he said. That includes initial orders for 2020 delivery, which are off to a strong start. Randall said Mack was seeing higher sales in nearly all segments in 2019, and there continues to be growing orders for its integrated powertrain. Separately, one industry analyst said in a report the current Class 8 build rates may suggest upside to the 2019 forecast, but “erring on the side of caution remains the right call.” He said Class 8 market activity “is rapidly approaching the precipice, and everyone should be preparing for a rapid downward correction in production levels in the next handful of months." During a recent Cowen conference call, an executive with a small fleet said truck manufacturers have been approaching him about ordering, which he called a sharp contrast from the overheated market a year ago. Other fleet representatives said orders for 2019 were mainly replacement vehicles, and that they were not in a rush to begin order negotiations because pricing could ease later this year. .