TeamsterGrrrl

IIRC, the first ones bought back around '84 were MCs. By the time USPS bought another big bunch in the 90s the MC was discontinued so they went with MRs specced with about the lightest frames, springs, and axles available on an MR. The last bunch we got in '96 had 3/8" frames and way too stiff front springs. Mack ended up replacing the springs with more compliant ones and replaced the drivers seats too.

Warren Buffet has cited family formation as a driver of the economy too, and it's been dropping for years as young folks marry later and have smaller families. This is a worldwide trend, with key predictors like birth rate dropping on almost every continent. This is essentially "the end of growth", or at least pure population increase driven growth. The markets will take a while to sort this out, as commodity markets ranging from grains to metals adapt to steady and even reduced demand for their products. But in the end it'll be good for economies, as smaller families will have to spend less on necessities and thus have more disposable income to spend on more profitable homes, vehicles, electronics, etc..

Penske's corporation owns a bunch of Mercedes dealers in the U.S. too... Having all these dealerships puts Penske in a unique position to influence both Daimler and VW Group.

Direct, I don't believe an overdrive 5 speed was offered in '77.

IIRC, fastest final drive they offered was a 3.65 or so, which would give 67 MPH @ 2100 RPM on 22.5 tires and 70 on 24.5s.

Memo to Ford: Bring back the Cargo, quick!

Yup, small markets like Australia require some compromises, and thank god Alfa still has some unique products! But too much corporate "sleeping around" combined with executives playing musical chairs all over the industry is not good for competition and leads to poorer and less innovative products.

Yup, under the bridge formula most of the American western states use the 10 axle Super B Double would only be good for around 53 metric tons or so gross weight. To get the payload up it'd need a bunch of extra axles, for example with a 4th axle on the tractor and 6 axles on each trailer it'd be good for around 75 tons gross in South Dakota. That's why max GCW combinations in South Dakota where weight is limited only by bridge formula commonly use 13 to 17 axles and the record is 20 axles, good for around 85 metric tons. I've sketched out a South Dakota legal 25 axle B Triple with 17.5" trailer wheels and a 5 axle tractor, it'd be good for around 100 tons metric GCW... Maybe that'd give the V8 Scania a challenge!

I drove a similar one, had about $20k at least of options I neither wanted or needed, like the seat vibrator! Ah, for the good ol' days when pickups were cheaper than cars...

Might depend on the state, IIRC every Australian state or territory decides whether to allow road trains, how big they can be, and other restrictions.

Most Americans live in cities, and most of the city workers are union members and democrats.

My apologies to GM, I forgot your long term relationship with geisha Isuzu... Did I miss any of your concubines?

You might not have noticed that it's us union democrats that keep the water systems running and the roads maintained. And it's those immigrants that pick and process our food. As for the guns, you can only shoot one at a time, and we got our own.

Nice B-double! This would make enormous sense in America with a Scania V8 tractor... With the 730 HP V8 it'd have better than 10 HP/Ton and maintain speed at the limit on all but the steepest hills, so who cares if it's nearly a hundred feet long?

Welcome to the brave new world of car and truck building and marketing... The makers have become marketers and have no loyalty to any brand or country and their heritage. Navistar has now cut deals with Cat, GM, VW, and CNH/FIAT, and who knows who else... Pretty much typical, as GM in recent history bought Saab, badge engineered a Suburu into a Saab, as well as co-manufacturing and badge engineering Suzukis and Toyotas. BMW is doing similar deceit with their Mini, and has anybody noticed the resemblance between the tiniest Toyota and Mazda cars? Meanwhile, the Mopars are transitioning from being downmarket Mercedes to being FIAT clones, while the Voyager minivan has reappeared as a Lancia... Disgusting! I call it "the whoring of the brands" as a once honorable brand sleeps around with whatever the owner thinks will make a quick profit. So if you're looking for a long term relationship with a brand, the whole industry has gotten slutty and is sleeping around to the point where it's getting hard to identify the offspring. Ultimately the customer figures out that their overpriced BMW bike was made in India, their Lancia is an orphan mass market minivan, and their Alfa Romeo is just an overpriced FIAT that's selling out for half price in Dodge dealers. When the marketers have thoroughly trashed the brand, they'll just find another to wring all the heritage and value out of. Sort of makes the whole "One Ford" concept downright lovable...

I've been following some truckers on Facebook that are shooting for 9+ MPG and in some cases achieving that. One of them is running a Volvo with the same lift pusher axle Mack is offering and the D11/MP7 engine. He put hubometers on both the drive and undriven pusher axle and noticed that the drive axle was noticeably doing more miles, indicating measurable wheel slip... One can imagine the wheel slip he'd get with a 600 HP engine! He's lowered air pressure on the drive axle tires to 80 PSI to get better traction and also had Volvo fit a front anti-roll bar to deal with the sloppy handling of the Volvo chassis.

My bad, should be 3-4 HP per ton. Maybe if I did all my figurin' in metric it'd be easier... Let's see, how many KW/ton is that?

We in America way overestimate the HP needed to move a load. In real world road tests, anything over 10HP/Ton tends to be wasted, unless you're going up and down mountains all day. On flat roads the power needed to maintain 60-65 MPH cruise speeds is rather modest, about 60-100 HP to overcome wind resistance on a modern aerodynamic truck and 1.5-2 HP per ton of weight to overcome rolling resistance. That explains how a torquey 300 HP engine can pull turnpike doubles at 50-60 tons on the Indiana and Ohio 'pikes just fine. Don't try it with a gutless wonder like the 270 HP L10 Cummins though, Hostess' turnpike doubles rig would only do 45 MPH and the troopers made them drop the 2nd trailer at the first service area.

The highest rating that would be compatible with the wide ratio transmission is 370HP.

Yup, that quad is only workable in an environment like the Australian outback. It's only got about 3 HP/Ton which would never be tolerated on busy highways. There's only about 10% of the weight on the drive wheels, so it'd be useless anywhere ice and snow are common. But cut it in half and make a B-double out of it and at 75 metric tons it'd have decent performance, stability, and acceptable snow covered road traction'

I didn't realize the LT cab was still around. Hostess had a bought a bunch of them with Kenworth badges on the front in the 80s, got to drive one a couple times... Was kinda funny to get into a big truck and find the same switches and such as the Golf I'd driven to work!

The American trucking industry is too busy ruining their reputation with the cheapest drivers and equipment they can buy to be bothered with improving productivity with quality drivers and trucks like this. That said, this quad is pretty much an outback restricted outfit, though it makes sense there. But fact is, we could legally run B doubles and B triples with at least half again the cubic capacity and twice the payload of the current 53'/40 short ton combinations with improved safety and productivity and less wear on the roads...If the law allowed us to.

300 HP is plenty usable, especially at straight truck weights!

Different regulatory goals... Central Europe has tight off tracking requirements which 25 meter B doubles will need steering trailer axle(s) to meet, thus they're pretty much sticking with truck and trailer combinations. Australia is fussy about roll stability of trailed units, and truck and trailer combinations will usually only meet their standards if they have a low center of gravity. Canada has done something similar, though they don't ban truck and trailer combinations they give B doubles an incentive by allowing extra weight.

Similar business model in both trucking and farming- Heavy capital investment, low profits, and hundreds of thousands of "independent" enterprises that can be played against each other= The big shippers and food processors play us against each other and make most of the $$$. In both cases, the best remedy is to know your costs and refuse to truck or farm at a loss and join with other independents in groups like OOIDA, the Teamsters, and Farmer's Union to increase our bargaining power.