Maxidyne

Maybe... But most of these trucks will be bought by fleets, not owner operators looking to impress the other drivers at the truck stop. Even vocational fleets are looking for better aerodynamics and sloping hoods are good for visibility too. At least they gave it a chrome grill so it don't look like a Mack!

ahh, if it were only so simple... This was back in the age when the customer was always right, even if the customer demanded a Detroit engine, Fuller transmission, Rockwell axles, and about the only thing Mack was the cab and if was a conventional a subcontractor built it. Continental Baking bought 200 odd Mack Western F models with just those specs, they were almost identical to their Freightliners except for the Mack cab. One of the big oilfield service companies bought a fleet of WS models in 1980 with Detroit 6V-92Ts and heavy axles to carry high pressure pumps powered by Detroits. Looking around the new trucks at a Mack dealers lot you'd find similar looking trucks, one with the old style stack of springs and one with taperleaf. And that's just the beginning of the "kid in the candy store" options filling the thick data books... Stuff like "Hotchkiss rear suspension with taper leaf springs", air starters, and a long list of aluminum components up to and including aluminum frame rails... Those were the days!

IIRC the taper leafs first appeared in the 70s, but most heavy trucks were still available with a conventional spring pack well into the 80s and beyond.

B-Doubles are the safest high productivity trucks on the road, bur we won't see them in the U.S. because the poorly trained "steering wheel holders" can't even handle one trailer...

Still not gonna find a lot of twin sticks and even air shift auxiliaries in Autocars since the late 60s- Once Eaton Fuller's 13 and 15 speeds offered the deep reduction and close splits formerly only available with twin transmissions, most Autocars were built with Eaton and later increasingly Allison transmissions.

Automatics in Autocar conventionals are nothing new, Autocar was always strong in vocational markets like refuse and transportation departments where automatics are common. The triplex and quadraplex transmissions were Mack exclusives and I doubt any were factory installed in Autocars. Probably the most common transmission you'll find in an Autocar conventional are the Eaton vocational manuals like the 8LL.

FCA may not have that reliable a product, but they're pricing it competitively- You can buy the full size Tradesman EcoDiesel for about the same price as the compact GM pickups with the 2.8 liter diesel, and they're offering 3/4 ton Ram 2500s with the Cummins diesel for about the same price as Ford's half ton F150 with the 3.0 liter diesel.

Scania is still largely "BEFORE SCR"- Only the top 730 HP rating uses EGR. https://www.scania.com/global/en/home/products-and-services/trucks/our-range/v8/specification.html

What the Mack V8 could have become: https://www.scania.com/global/en/home/products-and-services/trucks/our-range/v8.html

Last recession there was a 6 axle MR chassis stuck at the Twn Cities Mack dealer for what seemed like forever. Had 3 steering axles and a tri-drive in back, the 3rd axle of which had a power divider so I assume it was designed for a 4th driving and steering axle at the back. But with 8 axles, this Schwing takes the record. Schwing also builds concrete placers for export at that plant, I saw some 8x8 Volvo cabbed Terbergs there once and later some KWs that went to Iraq.

Why blow thousands blowing (up) an E6 2 valve when the last Mack sixes will give you 460 HP from the factory?

IIRC aluminum frames were only available on the Western models in a straight rail configuration.

Should be interesting to see. I retired as a TTO just before the current Macks came in, so I've been out of the loop for a while.

Are these International MVs actual purchases or more rental/lease trucks from Ryder?

That's one of the ones I've been writing about, turbo compounded engine and a single drive axle with air lift pusher axle, gets 9+ MPG.

Sounds like yet another application that Volvo's automated manual can't do...

Every once in a while I'll bump into a picture I took on google and I could care less- I'm a trucker, not a professional journalist.

Memo to Ralph: Sorry foamer, but old pictures of old locomotives are worthless- Those locos appeared in public all over the place for years and probably hundreds of images of them exist, and a lot of them very firmly in the public domain. So if you're hoping to make some small bucks threatening lawsuits, sorry buddy, get a life and maybe a job too. You'd be wise to accept the OP's kind off of a penny in royalties, 'cause that's the best you're gonna get!

All the testing did was confirm the obvious- A glider with a pre EPA2010 engine and emissions system will pollute more than a new truck that meets the EPA 2010 standard. Even if Fitzgerald or Volvo outright bribed the EPA, the results would be the same.

Expensive nose job, and just as functional as a nose job.

The new gas engine is a testimony to the incompetence of Ford's current management- They probably wasted a hundred million dollars to develop the world's last big pushrod V8!

UPS didn't need the weight capacity a tandem provides.

And why isn't Mack building something like this?

That tractor would be a gas to drive in the snow just to hear all the comments on the CB from the drivers with twin screws that wonder if they're gonna make it...

Tier 4 is easy, they have to meet EPA2010 in the US and Canada.