Volvo - Nissan Diesel

[Mack 3P]

Volvo Offers $1B for Nissan Diesel

[Barry]

I knew this was coming...Our sister store has already become a UD dealer...mainly so they could offer class 6&7 trucks...but they chose UD because the rumor mill was predicting this...

[GearheadGrrrl]

I just looked at my Volvo stock (VOLV) and realized I'd make enough already today to pay for a nice steak dinner. But I think I'll pass on all that colestoral! In the 6 years or so since the merger, Volvo stock has quadrupled- if you'd put $100,000 into VOLV instead of a new Mack back in 2001, you'd have made $50,000 a year sittin' on your butt. Of course, I'd have sold of a few shares to buy an old mack so I'd have an interesting place to park my butt!

Volvo knows how to do mergers- while the brands now share a lot of parts for economies of scale, the brands still pretty much maintain their individual personalities. Compare this with the mess that is DCX, where Mercedes late last friday publicly threatened divorce. The MoPar lineup is screwed up enough, with minivans on tippy toes being flaunted as SUVs and a subcompact with a rear drive axle tacked on posing as a Jeep. In fact, they're offering so many "jeep" models now that the market will soon forget what a real Jeep was. And that's just the car and light truck bizness... Freightshaker/Wasted Star/Sterling years after the merger is still building 5 different conventional cabs and 3 different cabovers! I suspect after the news of the divorce hit friday, their was a lot of sweatin' on Swan Island, Freighliner's HQ...