Maxidyne

Debatable if there's enough of Mopar left to survive on it's own.

IIRC Dongfeng is a minority shareholder and while they might get a board seat, they won't get control. And being the world's most populous country and 2nd biggest economy, the Chinese could easily buy outright several undervalued auto makers if they wanted to.

Decent highway truck, lousy log truck!

That MH has been listed for quite a while. Being as cabover dump trucks are rare, I've always wondered if it was originally built for some other application and later turned into a dump. The 9 speed Eaton trans is odd for a dump truck too... What's it got for an engine?

Was looking through the engine sections of Fleet Owners annual specs issue, noticed that all the Detroits now have peak torque at 975 RPM with Cummins and everybody else but Volvo following that low RPM trend, with the exception of Volvo's turbo compounded engines. This shows that Volvo can't compete with their 40k engines a year volume in this market, and they may as well outsource engines to Cummins.

Say what you will about Steyer's politics, but he's running a very effective campaign- While Minnesota's most electable democrat, Amy Klobuchar, hasn't done well enough in the polls to qualify for the November debate, virtual unknown Steyer has. He did that by very effectively targeting his advertising in the small markets like Sioux City that the campaigns usually ignore. Those small markets are a bargain with spots often costing less than $100, versus thousands of dollars in the big city markets. That goaded Klobuchar to get up on the air, but she's wasting her Dollars on the Des Moines and Iowa City markets.

Never ceases to amaze me how a lot of the business people in suits are broke and essentially have only two slices of stale bread and they're looking for a customer's meat to make them a sandwich. In contrast, I've met plenty of folks who dress in jeans, drive old cars, have shops bigger than their houses, and have net worths in the millions...

Of the two high MPG Mack "specials" I mentioned, one buyer has all of 4 trucks. The other has around 100 trucks, but this is their first Mack. I think a lot of the customer experience depends on the dealer, some will do the work to get you what you want and some refuse to do anything but sell you what's on the lot. As for Mack not understanding the importance of the "Convoy" trucks, that was in the 70s and most people of working age were too young then to have seen the movie. Couple that with younger folks inability to understand visual marketing and it's no wonder your marketing concept went nowhere. I suspect you'd get the same response at Freightliner if you wanted to build a classic Freightliner cabover truck... Most people in the industry now have only worked with conventionals.

Looks great! Mack would probably work with you on a custom build- For example they've built a couple trucks for small to medium sized operators specced for ultimate MPGs with the MPE-445 engine, very long gearing, liftable pusher axles, a low friction Dana rear drive axle, and even an 8 millimeter thick frame so they can load the 14,000 pound front axle to maximum capacity and run with the pusher axle up much of the time. These trucks are now doing 9 to 10 MPG, which is a game changer! What Mack couldn't supply would be a pre-2007 emissions engine or a glider built to take one- The EPA won't let them install a per-2007 "grey" Mack engine and the current cab and electronics are designed for a current Volvo or Cummins engine.

In a straight truck in flat south Louisiana, 300 honest Mack HP is plenty. And don't forget, in city driving the Allison's uninterrupted power will outrun anything but another Allison!

Never seen an SP2 in the flesh, bit read of them... Gorgeous car!

Didn't get a new car 'til 1978, so missed the chance to buy a 60s car new. Was working nights at a Chevy dealer in '68 when a new Z28 came in, found it was unsold, and after talking mom and dad into cosigning, found it had been sold to the school superintendent's son when I got to work next day. Probably couldn't afford insurance on it anyway, but I should have punted and bought one of the last of the Corvairs at least, 'long as I had mom and dad on board. I'm 2nd owner of the Cooper S, bought it in '75 and drove it through the late 80s, now I'm restoring it. An SP2 would definitely be a keeper!

I call it the "half century halo effect"- In old age we lust after and finally acquire the cars we lusted after when we were teenagers. When I was a teenager in the 60s I had little interest in Model Ts, I wanted the latest and best 60s sports or muscle car. The young driver of today reads the road tests and sees that a new GTI offers the performance of a 60s muscle car along with 30 MPG on the highway and a warranty and buys one. Me, I'm restoring a Mini Cooper S and drooling over the upcoming mid engine Corvette or a mid engine Porsche for my next new car, but I'll probably settle for a Golf R...

The 6 liter engines now offer way more power than a pickup needs, the manufacturers should offer their 3 liter diesels in 3/4 and one ton pickups, they've got plenty of power to haul and pull anything you can carry or hook to on even a one ton.

For really tough hauling an automated manual like Volvo's is no substitute for a real automatic like the Allison.

An inch of daylight between 5th wheel and trailer ain't normal, and for the price of a new 5th wheel it ain't worth the risk of a bad repair causing a multi-million $$$ accident.

That German tractor was probably a Fendt built by Agco, and was maybe even built in Jackson, Minnesota USA. Actually I've often had better luck getting parts for German cars and motorcycles than "American" ones, Ford often runs out of parts only a few years after their vehicles leave the assembly line and Harley has been known to discontinue parts for bikes that aren't even a decade old.

Best (american) tractor ever for urban trucking! This is probably one of the last of the USPS MRs, most were replaced with CXs in 2006. Has 300HP engine and HT740 Allison and Eaton rear on air ride, but still rides awful. No AC or even a radio, but had automatic lubrication system. Might be a good deal, but 20 years old.

Pre-emmissions means pre 1984, the regs got progressively tighter in 2004, 2007, and 2010. These were the last of the real Mack engines and in some ways the best, though they still had some glitches. But keep in mind that these trucks are all at least 12 years old which means while emissions-light they can still have all kinds of age related problems, especially if the truck has lived in the rust belt.

Roll offs tend to be pricey if you need one in a hurry- Takes a year from order to delivery for a new one so it's a seller's market for one that's ready to go, county here just paid $139k for a 2015 because they didn't know what they were doing. Prices don't sound bad, but make sure you're not getting a bastardized former highway tractor.

Put a Mack transmission back in.

The news part of BON has just been a bot that echoed Ford PR since the site owner had a meeting with Ford years ago. Maybe Ford quit paying the site's fees?

While Ford holds out for $30-40k prices for Rangers, the plant that builds them is running at no where near capacity. Given that that plant has a bunch of fixed costs whether it builds 50,000 or 200,000 Rangers a year, Ford should quit trying to tell the customer what they want and offer more options and trim levels to build volume.

That's a better business plan- small volume manufacturing requires more skills than trucking and thus tends to earn higher pay.

I continue to be amazed at just how badly Ford screwed up the U.S. market Ranger- Sits too high just to look cool, tiny pickup box, and even with the 4 cylinder engine it weights more than a similar spec F150!