Red Horse

Is the reason they added more bays is because so many trucks are breaking down? LOL

That Matt is good logic. Bad enough that you have a road failure-Worse when the dealer says..."Can't fit you in the shop till next week"

Let’s go over the history. Ford and Navistar formed the 50/50 joint venture Blue Diamond Truck Co. LLC in 2001 in Escobedo, Mexico to jointly build medium trucks.

The propaganda speak was Ford wanted to tap the expertise of a company known for heavy trucks, while Navistar said it wanted to work with a global leader in lighter commercial vehicles.

But the companies began fighting in 2006, blaming each other for defective Powerstroke diesel engines popular in Ford pickups (injector failures).

The companies sued each other in 2007 and settled 2009. As part of the settlement, Navistar took over 75% of Blue Diamond which continued to produce F-650s and F-750s.

Under the new arrangement, Ford dealers were unhappy with the competiveness of the product (lack of product upgrading) and the way Navistar controlled the pace of deliveries.

In October 2011, Ford announced it will move F-650/F-750 production out of Blue Diamond and back to the U.S., assembling the trucks in Avon Lake, Ohio. Ford’s press release stated “The shift in truck production will mean the end of Blue Diamond Truck LLC, the joint venture Ford has with Navistar to build the trucks”. The release further said “The change was prompted by the business needs of Ford.”

As shown in Navistar’s 2011 10-K, Ford notified Navistar in December 2011 of its intention to dissolve the Blue Diamond Truck joint venture effective December 2014.

So to answer your question, Blue Diamond is over and Ford has moved on. The installment of Clarke as Navistar’s new CEO has no effect on the situation.

Note: The 1997 F-650/F-750 was supposed to share the all-new HN80 cab with the new AeroMax and Louisville, but the heavy truck sale to Daimler changed the fate of Ford’s medium truck range.

Thx for your comments. I just hope Ford has some good performance/oversight language in place. Think of the risk. Navistar is supposed to keep cranking out a quality product while Ford gears up to fight them again head on- in class 6 and 7 and probably vocational class 8 too.

Nice- I was working for a developer in Conn. in early 60's. We had an 801 Ford with a shuttle stick and an Eranco driving front axle. In those days a 4WD TLB was a rare thing. Drive shaft for the axle came out the side of the trans case on the left side, then under the foot rest to the left side of the axle. The tractor was red/gray but we had a new 14' hoe that was cream color with red ford Script. iittle devil would do a lot of work. I found a B & W picture, I'll see if I can get one of my kids to scan.

Took about 5 minutes to put the hoe on or off.

So KSC, what do you think this new guy's view of Bluediamond is? As Ford was International's main competition in class 7 and a worthy competitor in 8, I can't see how they will run the risk that Ford could again be viable. Before the 6.0 "divorce", they had a good mutually beneficial relationship but now-different story.

As to who built the CL cab, it was Sheller Globe.

It was this in between...operated by Catino Loam

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Another Catino Loam B81

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Very good Bryan. The truck was parked on Rt 70 for the longest time-I finally stopped one day to look at it and found out who owned it. Talked to Mike for 45 min and found out it was far more truck than I could afford-told Mike ..."its a shame its just sitting here". His response was- "yah I want to do it" About two years later it showed up at Hudson show-a beautiful job!

Bob- He was also telling me how one of the single drop grocery trailers loaded with motor oil lost and axle on the Cross Bronx. None of the towing companies wanted anything to do with it so him and the other guy went down and jacked the trailer up and got the axle back under it then chained the axle in so it wouldn't move. that was after about 7 or 8hrs of jacking and pushing and pulling. The 2 sister to the trailer both broke in half in North Haven by the drop. he said they use to overload them

Hah-not sure if I remember that one- I only was involved with the "other side" fleet from sometime in 90 to end of 93.

They have more than 40 wreckers for 3 guys to drive. Snow/Rain trucks and Sunny day trucks. They kept most of the trucks they bought.

He said a girl c

CT allows $275hr for a regular heavy duty wrecker never mind a crane or rotator. He remembers that one.ut off the truck and turned herself in the next day because it contaminated the towns water supply. Sunoco rolled one getting off Exit-8 and the bill was $28K without environmental

10-4 on the well. final bill on that one was big 7 figures! I think there were 7 municipal wells in that wetland. Miracle there was no fire- One bit of collateral damage- about 3 days after, clean up contractor was delivering stone with a beautiful Superliner pulling trailer dump-you guessed it-dump went over and nailed the cab-miracle driver wasn't killed.

If nothing else, green will save you a few bucks too!

Didn't he have a nice '60s R-model too. That Brockway has been down here for about 2 years now. A local towing company just bought a tri-axle pete for 750,000 with a rotator. Then you got Plunske with a 1 of 50 Oshkosh aircraft recovery trucks that handles the jobs just fine taking car of 91 in Wallingford/North Haven. Bought it from a guy in NJ who put a 300, 6 speed with new DMM hood and cab

Matt, He did have an older R Model too as BK noted-not sure if it was a 750 on it -but the trucks were always inside-I'm sure these were clean units.

Nice shot of the Plunske truck- when we were kids we used to drive up rt 5 to see all the red Fords parked in a row-he had a couple of nice Super Dutys too-as in F-950 Super Duty not F-350 Super Duty. Wonder what became of those- I saw he had a clean 70's 750 for sale a while ago.

I can't imagine how these guys pay off these new monsters-then again, I think that CH Coady is selling has over 200,000 on it and its not that old- good utilization-then again they don't work cheap-ask your dad if he remembers when we rolled one of the new CH's over on I-93 in like 1991. Coady's bill for that was over 10 grand.

Had to go to Conn today and was surprised to see Red-Arts Garage with the signs all gone and the place cleaned out. In the back of my mind I thought I saw the old Brockway wrecker recently posted someplace so can't say I was surprised. Seems like it was yesterday and these were the guys who handled the wrecks on 84 from say Manchester to the Mass line-with their old single axle "hooks".

Then again, the business has changed. If anyone saw any of the coverage last week of the recovery operation when the bus carrying the U-Maine girls basketball team went off 95. Coady had TWO big boom wreckers on scene-$$$$$$$$$ (Seems like one would have been sufficient) . One of those CH Macks is currently on sale on eBay for 350 thou!

Found this photo taken at the Hudson show online. Not sure if anyone knows about this truck? Saw it at the one show and that was it....

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No clue-that was two or three years ago-never saw it again.

DeLeo Construction New Haven, CT

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Matt- Al DeLeo?

I went out to the website of the Rhode Island Vintage Wiring and found that they do make the wiring harness for the B61,can't be that much different then my B87.Problem is that it's $1200 so I will be making my own.It will be a slower process doing it one gauge at a time but for 1200 I'm in no rush.

Sounds like you have your mind made up but just for kicks take a look at ..Vintagewiringofmaine.com website. Impressive but I hear the product is first rate.

Last ditch effort to try to remain significant in the world.

Overall, navistar was hanging on via the smaller (Class 6 & 7) trucks.

And the very large fine Uncle Sam hit them with, surprised in a way that they still any money.

E Z Pack and related companies are a large player in the garbage world.

Hope they don't get dragged down by "creative engineering"

On another note, they did recently announce they were coming out with a cab over (like the Sterling Condor-actually looks like a Condor) which would be a competitor of the Mack TerraPro (MR), "Autocar" (old White Expeditor) but in any case, aligning yourself with a particular body builder excludes you from the whole pool.

Didn't they do the same thing with mixers in the last year or so? An even dumber move IMO. Rear discharge mixers are yesterday's newspaper. While I'm sure there might be some jobs that make sense-like you are pouring a huge job and you just back up to a big concrete pump and blow the load out- for the most part, front discharge mixers rule. Most contractors don't WANT rear discharge mixers on their jobsites.

I wheeled my share of concrete off the back of LJ's and B-81's in my youth. Today?-I was pouring 8 sono tubes at our fairgrounds not long ago- front discharge mixer took no more than five minutes! Driver never left the cab until he got out to wash the chutes!

Kiss the rear discharge mixer business goodbye!

Trailer/Body Builders / Feb 22, 2013

Navistar, Inc. has completed its acquisition of E-Z Pack Manufacturing and is now operating the business.

The E-Z Pack product line includes the Hercules front loader, Goliath and Apollo rear loaders, and the Hercules Automated Side Loader.

E-Z Pack operations will remain chassis-agnostic and will continue to build and mount refuse truck bodies on all chassis by all original equipment manufacturers. Navistar will also build integrated E-Z Pack refuse bodies on International brand commercial truck chassis. Manufacturing of E-Z Pack bodies will remain at the company's facility in Cynthiana, Ky.

Jim Rogers will continue in his role as Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

The E-Z Pack parts division is in a transition process under the new Navistar ownership. UpTime Parts, a wholly owned subsidiary of Navistar, will be leading this part of the business with focus on supporting E-Z Pack customers.

Interesting. Given Navistar's financial position-it's not the best correct??- and given the hole they are trying to dig out of with respect to their EGR issue, I would have to wonder if this makes sense.

While we often read about companies divesting of assets when the going gets rough to ...."focus on their core business", I have to scratch my head on this one.

Here is a case where Navistar is spending money on something that MIGHT make sense- if all things considered the rest of their house was in complete order.

I think the "Allison" engines were in fact the turbines that GM fooled around with. Both Ford and GM were into turbines. Ford's first was a show truck that they had at the World's fair in NYC in 1964. Much later they built a turbine called the 707 and they actually had them installed in some Ford W cab overs that were in the company fleet hauling between plants.

I never heard of an Allison piston engine-other than aircraft engines from WW II. I think Allison built a version of the Rolls Royce that was used in the P-51 Mustang.

Ex- City Readymix Waterbury, CT supposedly the garage is still full of old macks

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Mike Trotto's -just the way he got it!

So guys, seeing all these Highpoint trucks made me think- it seems like a year or so ago there was always a truck from Highpoint on E-bay. Don't see that anymore-or is it my imagination?

My friend, I'm simply saying that the U.S. product line-up has a void since the Super-Liner was terminated in the U.S. market. The Titan compares with the RW713 for severe service operations, but there is blank place where the higher volume on-highway RW613 once stood. Mack Australia understood this, and created a lighter version of the Titan resulting in the 3rd generation Super-Liner. I queston why it is not sold here.

I applaud Mack Australia for seeing beyond Mack U.S.'s shortsightedness and, on there own accord, finding a way to creat a new Super-Liner to meet that long time market niche.

As for running down the U.S. market Titan, I have indeed stated that I don't care for the pimp car styling they gave it (excessive chrome everywhere), as compared to the more professional looking Australian market Titan. For this matter, I'm merely expressing my opinion. A little chrome in the right places is tasteful, but excessive use of chrome everywhere is tacky.

Just what IS Mack Australia? Are they too not operating under the same Volvo direction??

No this was Petes Tire Barn(was pricing for a friend).Was thinking of putting tubeless on my B81 if I keep it,they have an old skool style retread for 288- each.Said they were popular with dumps/garbage trucks.I was surprised that size has been in the same ballpark pricewise for a few years.

Bridgestones?? You don't have much of a choice either.

Outstanding! As are all the wise ass comments.

Thats why Mack is the "Greatest name in trucks." Our town went in with the state about 5 or 6 years ago and got a Freightliner. It was the worst thing they ever did. The truck can't plow snow up a hill with a load of salt on it. All the other trucks we have are R-models ranging from 1980-2001. They also got rid of the International last year to pay for another used Mack they just finished building.

A buddy of mine is chief mechanic for a nearby town- they did the same thing-bought a used heavy spec Mack that some other town had sold off. Had to do some work on it but they have the skills to do it-that is the key-qualified people make things happen!