Maxidyne

Dang, Ford sure is "proud" of their stuff! Half again more than the price of FCA's street legal 9 second Challenger. Ford's new Ranger will be $4k more than the Chevy Colorado. In GT endurance racing the old Corvette is giving the half million dollar Ford GTs a run for their money. And with Ford abandoning cars, the next generation mid engine 'Vette will make the half million $$$ Ford GT obsolete, and with an entry price well under $100,000!

Looks like the readouts you can get with good diagnostic software!

Never thought it'd happen, but I became a GM shareholder today. But unless they'll give me inflation adjusted value on the 1969 "Corvair rebate" coupon, I don't expect to be buying GM anytime soon.

Most of the Mack engines of that era were mechanical injection pumps with electronic oversight via an electric throttle and VMAC software.

No, think they're different engines. Cummins lists the X12 for 2018, this is a much lighter engine than the old big block. I think the option that Paccar and others have offered for the past few years was the ISX12 variant of the big block. Hope I'm wrong though, would be good to see more makers offer the option of the excellent new X12 engine!

I suspect that's the old 12 liter variant of the 15 liter "big block" Cummins, a good engine but kinda heavy. The X12 I'm talking about is just now being introduced to the NA market and is considerably lighter than the 12 liter "big block" engine.

I suspect the X12 isn't being offered as an option by International, Paccar, and Volvo(Mack) because it competes too well with their own 11 to 13 liter engines.

Not to mention the MP10 alone is darn near half a ton heavier than an E7, and you'd probably lose a full ton of payload by the time you'd upgraded the drivetrain, etc. to handle the MP10's power. An E7 460 should have no problem moving 40 metric tons, best to fix it rather than throw it!

MP10 won't fit, for a start.

A lot of the blame goes to our oddball pollution regulations- The rest of the world has gone with the Euro standards and the USA and Canada have gone their own way. Total market for the MP10/D16 here is probably not even a thousand units a year, so it's not worth it to certify the MP10/D16 to sell here.

Given the auto sector inexperience of the latest wave of top execs they may not even know of anything bigger than the F350 and Transit.

"Moving forward, each of the automaker's vehicles will be on one of five platforms: rear-wheel-drive/all-wheel-drive body-on-frame; front-wheel-drive/awd unibody; commercial van unibody; rwd/awd unibody; and a unibody platform for battery-electric vehicles." With only one BOF platform left and it'll be dedicated to the F series, that means the yet to be introduced US/Canada Ranger and Bronco are already end of lifed. The surviving front/all wheel drive unibody car will probably be a 1700 mm. wide car/SUV/"panel delivery" variant to replace the Fiesta, etc.. Looks like the only serious van left will be the full size Transit. The RWD/AWD unibody will probably be future 2 and 4 door Mustangs, Explorers, and the next Ranger. etc.. And an electric car platform? Given the slow sales of the Focus electric, a total waste of billions!

Was Carolina the other fleet that bought Us with 903s? Legend has it that a big eastern fleet had decided on the U model, then shopped around for an engine and Cummins offered them the lowest price on the 903, so they inked the deal and told Mack to put the 903s in their U models. IIRC they were single drive with a tag so the could readily take off the tag should doubles be legalized nationwide.

Was doing some research on the safety of the huge LCVs South Dakota allows so I dug out the state's crash stats. Turns out the LCVs have a pretty good safety record, while the group of vehicles that really stand out as crash prone is the smaller straight trucks pulling trailers. Makes sense- While the LCVs have more than ample tire and brake capacity with ABS and CDL qualified drivers, the typical light truck and trailer rig has a driver who qualified largely by passing a parallel parking test overwhelmed by an overloaded mismatch of too light truck and a trailer with no ABS and a poorly secured rolling cargo. Makes me wish for the EU's requirement of a CDL for any trailer over 1650 pounds or a GCW of over 7700 pounds... Would like to see the shopping mall cowboys and cowgirls try to pass a CDL with their crew cab duallies!

A lot of the problem is shady operators trying to haul big loads while staying under the 10,000 pound logbook required threshold. Had a driver with an Econoline cube van pull into our facility once, had over 10,000 pounds of mail to unload and confessed he'd driven straight through over 1200 miles to get there! The cube van was registered for just under 10,000 pounds... JB, My sources for Ford news are retiring too. Like you said, they performed a valuable service by giving dealers, customers, etc. a heads up of what was coming in the next year or two. There replacements barely seem to know what they'll be doing the rest of the week, never mind next year! Then again, Ford top management doesn't seem to know where the company is going... While they're talking electrification, production of most all of Ford's hybrids and electric vehicles has ended. Haven't heard any Ford PR for the Transit Custom electric in months and the only thing hybrid coming is the next generation Explorer while Ford is coming to market with new diesel options for the Transit Connect and F150.

A lot of companies would shop their specs around the truck makers then go with the low bid.

Agreed, a manufacturer can fit a lot more into a given length if they don't have to waste several feet on a hood. I've looked at both the Transit and the F series pickups and prefer the Transit- better engine access, carries as much as the pickup but inside protected from the weather, etc.. And while the V8 Powerstroke is overkill for a pickup, the inline 5 diesel in the Transit provides ample power without the bulk of a V8.

And those dropside flatbeds with the double cab would easily outwork our crew cab "pickups" while fitting in a normal parking space!

It isn't so much that the Econoline chassis and cutaways need a big gas engine, it's customer's belief that they need a big V8 driving that marketing choice. Around the world even 2liter turbodiesels are hauling some pretty impressive loads in and behind small vans, but the major markets for the Econoline like motorhome builders just want a cheap big gas engine, so the ancient Econoline with it's "modular" V10 engine that was derived from economy car designs is still around.

No, we get lots of different body heights and lengths but only a naturally aspirated v6, EcoBeast turboed V6, or inline 5 turbo diesel all with automatic and rear drive.

The Scania V8 would put International head and shoulders above every US/Canada market competitor!

Yup, Hackett made a statement along the lines of "wish we had some premium brands". I suspect the major reason for the FWD version of the Transit platform is to get a low floor height to allow maximum cube in the van body. As for the 2 liter diesel, IIRC that's the biggest VW is offering in their new Crafter van so that's becoming the norm. On the other hand, I've heard that Ford wants to keep the aging Econoline cutaway and chassis around a few more years because they think the big block motors are needed for towing. IIRC, the 3.2 diesel comes outa Great Britain, but with Brexit and a tariff war underway, who knows what'll power future Transits?

If there's no Fords left up to running Ford, maybe they should let the Koc family of Ford Ottosan give it a try...

Maybe Uber figured out there were too many competitors in the space and decided to get out. Self driving technology will be pretty much truck platform neutral, which means one company's system could dominate the market and force out competitors. And there are plenty of competitors, what with several auto makers as well as software providers in the space. For example, a couple days ago I saw a Ford Transit Connect van lettered for "Apple maps" in a remote rural area. But it had much more data capture equipment than required for simple map making and the remote location would not be a high priority for scanning to acquire data for maps... So I suspect Apple was really testing self driving technology, as has been rumored.

That's the new wide cab, Ford's USA market traditionally leaned vocational so this narrow cabbed model would make a better conventional- https://www.fordtrucks.com.tr/tr-en/tractor/3542t That said, there may be a narrow version of the new wide cab coming.