TeamsterGrrrl

You can substitute a 10 speed for a 5 speed with a Maxitorque engine... But it won't make the truck go any faster.

Assuming you can actually use that horsepower. Where I live our roads are mostly flat 2 lanes with 55 to 65 MPH speed limits. Weight limit is 80k pounds except for 97k when hauling farm products off the interstate. Even at 97k pounds anything more than 500 HP would be wasted, and at 80k pounds an MP7 would be just as fast as an MP10. Just west of here in South Dakota the rules are different, with maximum weight governed only by bridge formula and 17 axle doubles running at around 170k pounds not being unusual. At those weights, an MP10 at 605 HP would be barely adequate and the Euro 750 HP MP10 would be nice.

Truck more efficiently and you can knock off early or make an extra house payment...

If you're into trucking as an expensive hobby, load up on the horsepower and chrome. But for many folks here trucking is a business, and expensive luxuries only make sense if they'll increase profits and help feed and shelter the family.

Awesome ad, Ford should be running it worldwide!

I'd agree on the MP8 simply because it's lighter and will carry more weight when hauling the inevitable lighter loads. Same with fuel economy- when it's 605 HP isn't needed, the MP10 is going to consume more fuel. As for Pinnacle vs. Granite, have the dealers spec and price out both and compare. And avoid the Volvo automated manual like the plague- Once the truck is out of warranty, it's a $15,000 ticking financial time bomb.

Had the same problem with my '98 Ford Ranger... E-brake parts rust out, Ford ran out of cables by 2003, Rangers used at least two sizes of rear brake and NAPA lists three. I ended up getting all three cables from NAPA and returning the ones that didn't fit. Curiously enough, the cables that fit were not the ones listed for my Ranger...

Another example of how fractured things are at Mack these days, heck, even the brand is fractured. The "Born Ready" video was a wasted effort, and an even greater waste of money- Air horns are not a Mack exclusive, and to have the same ol' white guys pulling the cord does nothing to bring in new customers. Would have been better to focus on a mack attribute like low speed torque, with couple second scenes of diverse drivers putting different Macks in motion in trying circumstances like a Michigan train starting on an upgrade, a refuse truck pulling out of a soft landfill, a dump truck with a heaping load cleanly pulling away despite being mired in muck with one wheel over a foot higher than another. At the end, a simple slogan... "the torque that moves us: Mack!"

IIRC, a few decades ago Mack was the only heavy truck maker that had their own full size wind tunnel, and it shown in their products.

Agreed- If you have to do pickups and deliveries in alleys, inside buildings, etc. a cabover like this can offer half again the load space in a package the size of a pickup. And Ford needs to take this market seriously- The new F650/750 doesn't seem to be selling all that well.

I've seen plenty of "legals" run away from accidents too...

Back when I worked for the Postal Service we had one of our trucks rear end a line of stopped vehicles, 4 of them in a row IIRC with all damaged. Postal Service was clearly at fault and would have paid damages to all 4 owners, but one took off running, never to be seen or heard from again. Police ran the his vehicle and as far as we can tell he wasn't wanted for any crime, our guess was he was undocumented and fearful of being deported. Kinda a shame, Postal Service would have paid for his damages, the law is the same whether he's here legally or not.

I'll take the bait and run with it... I don't think that Honda wagon is available in this market. Heck, there's hardly any wagons left in the American market, most of the makers preferring to push SUVs (Stupid Useless Vehicles) on us. Apparently VW AG was slow to get the memo on that one, and persists in offering us the option of the Golf Variant (Sportswagon). I joke that VW doesn't sell pickups because their cars do that job, and it's true- even the Golf hatch has over a thousand pounds of payload, and the Variant is good for a half metric ton and with the seats folded flat there's two cubic meters of space. Despite their high rooflines, few SUVs can match that capability. So to be honest, the only real replacement I can find for the Sportswagon is another Sportswagon, and hopefully I can get one with a diesel. As for the 50 MPG, Consumer reports tested the Accord hybrid in sedan form and got 40 MPG, about the same as a TDI. That's when new, after a decade with a near dead battery the Accord Hybrid degrades to a 30 MPG conventional gasser. At that point the TDI gets another routine service and goes on at 40 MPG for another decade...

I'm in the same position- I've got a 2013 Sportswagon TDI with 32k miles. If VW gives me a buyback at pre-dieselgate retail value plus $5k, that'll be what I paid for it before taxes and hard to resist. But if I can't get a new 40 MPG car with the Sportswagon's hauling ability, that $5k will get eaten up by fuel costs long before I wear out the TDI. So unless I can get another TDI, I'll probably hang on to this one

For trucks that live in city traffic or have a lot of PTO time, a 20 MPH or less average ain't unusual.

Thanks, I haven't heard of the Post Office owning any Macks before the MB and F models. Could be though, I've seen pictures of a Post Office R series International from the 1950s, though back then most of the Postal big truck fleet was straight trucks.

Was that a Post Office owned B61T or a contractor's B61T?

As a Ford shareholder, I think Ford needs to get a lot more serious about the GT and performance. Ford's win with the original GT in 1966 was the culmination of a several year long effort that broke new ground in computer simulation, materials science, and a bunch of other fields. There was also several years of trial and error failures that lead to that victory. That's what's required to win on a worldwide scale in motorsports and make history. This time around Ford seems to be aiming at a one shot 50th anniversary "win" for PR purposes, with the GT hopefully enjoying a class win while getting lapped by the Porsche, Audi, and Toyota prototypes. Even that class win is iffy, during a recent test day the Ford GT was no faster than competing Corvettes and Lamborghinis. That assumes the GT can finish the race... Ford's untested GT has been having trouble finishing the early season races. Ford needs to get serious about racing or quit wasting stockholder's equity on an also-ran effort.

MAN had a cab that looked a lot like the Cargostar too.

Mack trucks were "vertically integrated" so they could build a better truck. Volvo trucks are "vertically integrated" so they can make higher profits.

They'd make sense in the U.S. too, heck a long conventional with big sleeper and 53 foot trailer or double 28s is just as long. And compared to the standard U.S. "A-Train" doubles, these "B-Train" doubles are more stable and offer more cargo space. A 25 meter "B-Train" could offer 20+ meters of cargo space, a 20% improvement on the current U.S. "A-Train" 28 foot doubles and the same capacity as the LTL industry's proposed 33 foot doubles with more stability. Or better yet, why not double up on the world's most common sized freight container with "B-Train" double 40s with a 30 meter overall length?

But will it really save any money? The average new class 8 truck today will cost over a million dollars to fuel, repair, insure, and pay a driver for over it's lifetime. Saving $20k to 40k on the price of a new $120k premium truck isn't worth it if the "bargain" truck lasts only half as long as the premium truck, costs more to keep running, and wastes it's driver's time while crawling over hills if dead in the shop.

I knew they weren't happy taking orders from VW, I suspect dieselgate just added fuel to the fire of independence. Perhaps Volvo and some Swedish investors will buy Scania and merge it with Volvo? There'd be antitrust hassles in the EU, but not in America...

I wonder if some of these executives are fleeing VW and their TDI emissions nightmare?

Under U.S. bridge formula, two rigs with 53 foot trailers at 80k pounds apiece would have to have a gap of at least 40 feet or so to be legal.