Maxidyne

Given that on about two thirds of Class 8 combination vehicles the cargo box(es) fill up before reaching the weight limits, cabovers would allow increased productivity by turning all the space wasted on a hood into space for more paying freight. That's why in countries that haven't hobbled their truckers with arbitrary trailer length limits like the U.S. has cabovers outsell conventionals.

Back in the days before STAA when cabovers outsold conventionals in Class 8 I heard the same comment that the cabovers all looked the same. To the casual observer that was the case because they were all built to fit in the same dimensional envelope, but for anybody that studied them much it was easy to tell them apart.

Whole lot of money for Ford to invest in a truck that will never see the U.S. market...

Amazing how the style of the "Big 10" which was created to get around emission rules is still popular decades later... Perhaps Volvo needs to create a "Glider" trim package?

Hackett needs to be transferred somewhere he can't do any more harm... Maybe cleaning up the pigeon droppings at that abandoned railroad station he bought?

The Ford family really needs to quit letting the newbie interns run the company...

The AMIs were Maxidyne engines and were offered with wide ratio split transmissions like the 6 speed.

They all need to quit wasting billions on fringe market electric and self driving cars and get back to building cars and trucks that customers actually want to buy!

Interesting to see the world's automakers spending billions and stumbling all over themselves to develop electrification and automated driving technologies that customers have shown little desire for. The $4,000,000,000 they're wasting on these fads would have funded a whole new conventional cab medium/heavy truck program and a world class small transverse engine car/crossover/van program.

Still waiting for the Scania V8 option...

Now that Ford is pretty much getting out of cars in North America, will Ford Racing's $$$ be transferred to big truck racing?

As a Cummins shareholder, I wonder why Volvo isn't offering the Cummins X12 as an option if they can't build enough Volvo engines? Or is Volvo worried that their engines can't compete with the X12?

Probably won't fit- The MP8 (Volvo engine) is longer than the Mack engine and they had to modify the firewall to fit it. While the tighter emissions standards took effect on January 1st of 2007 and the Mack engine couldn't meet them. I've seen early 2007's built in 2006 that had the Volvo engines but not the tighter 2007 emissions equipment, and I've heard of several 2007s like yours that still had the old Mack engine. So while you might be in luck with the newer cab that can accommodate the MP8, a 2008 engine is going to come with a pile of emissions equipment that will be a pain to transfer and make compatible with your truck.

Perhaps the Cat trucks site is still up because they still have unsold new ones....

That's the new world market Ford cabover that Kevin's been writing about.

Hopefully there will be a new medium/heavy cab, which is the key to building a new Ford medium/heavy truck. The X12 and X15 would need some doghouse as not all customers want a long conventional, and the L and even B series engines are fairly big too... Thus the F150 cab even with mods might be unacceptable. Thanks for pointing out the need for an E-series replacement- Even paired back to just cutaways and stripped chassis with no diesel option the E series is still selling 40,000 or so units a year, and that's a big help in reaching the 200,000 units a year needed to be viable. Ford also needs a parallel line of cabovers, suggesting that the Cargo or new H series wide cab might be the best basis for this new Ford heavy/medium truck line.

Mayflower or whatever they're calling themselves this week is still around and making cabs for a couple makers, IIRC. But they'd expect Ford to pay for tooling up a cab, and that would be expensive on a per unit basis.

No, not staring rumors, just exploring possibilities. With GM and Toyota nipping at their heels with new models, Ford needs to up their game in medium/heavy trucks- A 21st century conventional that can compete with the best Daimler, International, Paccar, and Volvo offer while providing outstanding value to the small business that just needs a class 4 straight truck. Cummins will be happy to provide power beyond the Powerstroke's capabilities as well as electrification options, in fact Cummin's new X12 needs a North American conventional cab home. Frame rails and the transmissions, suspensions, and axles that attach to them are available from multiple sources, no problem. But where do we source a cab? We need a cab that can accommodate the doghouse for any Cummins on highway engine, holes in the floor for gearshift levers, side windows big enough to give a full view of a west coast and spot mirrors, enough headroom for a tall driver on an air seat, and enough width for a DOT legal sleeper. And did I mention that Ford and every other major auto/truck maker want at least the 200,000 unit a year volume to keep a cab plant busy working two shifts, and are used to million units a year platforms like the F150/Excursion/Navigator and Focus/C class variants? The "Super Duty" F250-750 steel cab is still around, but two decades old already. The aluminum F150-350 cab is a possibility, but would all the modifications needed to make it as a heavy truck cab be worth it? The current Cargo cab is the right width for a vocational truck and the new wide H cab is on the way, but is either worth modifying into a conventional? Or should Ford design and tool up an all new cab, perhaps shared with another maker to keep the costs down? What's your opinion?

As long as International has surplus production capacity they'll probably be happy to assemble medium trucks for GM. But with major International stockholder VW Group testing everything from big Scanias on down in the U.S., VW Group may kick GM outta Intenational's plants...

The frontal airbag was promoted by Nader as an attempt to offer some crash protection to drivers and passengers too dumb to use a seat belt. Having used seat belts from the 60s I've been forced to pay for air bags I don't need in four new vehicles so far. Now that those mandated frontal air bags are explosively failing and with 90% of drivers using the shoulder harnesses, they should become an extra cost option on new vehicles and those of us who wish to have these worthless frontal airbags removed from our current vehicles should be able to have that done for free and be reimbursed for the initial cost of these unwanted impositions on our vehicles.

IIRC back in '78 in Pennsylvania I saw an F model western in CF colors, speced identical to CF's Freightliners. Story I heard was that CF bought them to evaluate the competition.

Kinda hard for a small shop to compete with the likes of Paccar et al that can afford robots and get the best prices on parts due to their volume buying.

That's what I've heard, UPS's own PR says only 25% natural gas. I suspect the cost of natural gas fueling facilities are holding back adoption, seems only the bigger hubs can justify it. Have any of the Chicago area hubs gotten natural gas fueling facilities?

A single rear axle straight truck often weights around 18,000 pounds once you get the body, tail lifts, etc. mounted. If you can't shift any of that weight to the front axle you'll only have a payload of 10,000 pounds or less, forcing you into a tandem just to get a couple thousand pounds more payload. With a cabover you can easily load the front axle to it's limit even with a crew cab and get better maneuverability to boot. If I were buying a class 6 or 7 straight truck I'd pay the couple thousand dollars more for a real work truck like the Isuzus instead of one of these pickups on steroids.

Rode my '84 BMW R65 with a sidecar to a Ural/Guzzi rally about 15 years ago. Urals were so narrow and tippy that the riders had to lean over towards the sidecar on right handers to keep from tipping while I stayed on the seat and relaxed. After the last stop of the ride in Duluth the Urals were down a gear or three and could only climb the hill on I-35 at 40-45 MPH. I tucked in behind the Guzzi riders and rode 80-85 MPH all the way back to the campground by Cloquet!