kscarbel2 Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Wall Street Journal / March 12, 2015Volkswagen AG needs to establish a strong truck business in the United States if it wants to be a global player, VW's new board member in charge of commercial vehicles told reporters on Thursday.Andreas Renschler was responding to speculation that VW's truck division could make a big acquisition in the U.S. in a bid to build the business.He said "to be a global player, you need to be in the U.S".Renschler didn't give any indication as to whether VW would make an acquisition to achieve that goal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kscarbel2 Posted March 13, 2015 Author Share Posted March 13, 2015 Renschler's has just stated his plans rather clearly. One has to assume VW Group will purchase Navistar, as the acquisition of Paccar (DAF, Kenworth Peterbilt) would be rather costly, and European regulators would squawk over VW controlling three European truck makes. Further reading:http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/index.php?/topic/38784-new-vw-truck-division-head-evaluating-us-acquisition/?hl=volkswagenhttp://www.bigmacktrucks.com/index.php?/topic/36531-paccar-no-merger-talks-with-vw/?hl=volkswagen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamsterGrrrl Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Navistar is the only north american market acquisition that wouldn't be blocked for antitrust reasons, and neither Volvo nor Daimler would sell anyway. While Navistar is "damaged goods", buying Navistar and fixing it would be a whole lot cheaper and easier than tooling up a conventional and building a dealership network from scratch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james j neiweem Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Remember Navistar shareholders and directors- getting every last nickel and dime for the company is more important thandoing the right thing. I guess the battle of the Bulge was really fought in vain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamsterGrrrl Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Navistar has barely survived near death experiences in the last recession and in the recession of the 1980s, to be honest i don't think they've got another recession left in them. While becoming a subsidiary of VW would be a blow to "'merican" pride, It'd be the best move for the future of the company, shareholders, workers, and customers. As an independent company, Navistar won't be able to attract the investment to replace it's dated products- For example, the current cab is about to become the oldest in the mainstream conventional market, and their own diesels are ancient compared to the competition. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoadwayR Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 I think the time for VW to have acquired Navistar may have passed, and from what I hear Navistar has some formidable anti-takeover 'poison pills'. I think Navistar would have to want to be taken over. Worst may be behind them now anyway, why sell out?As for VW, they never realized their goal of merging Scania and MAN and owning 100% of the result. Their executives have suffered from delusions of grandeur (or Daimler-Benz) for years. No question a Navistar acquisition would be appealing to VW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Horse Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 I think the time for VW to have acquired Navistar may have passed, and from what I hear Navistar has some formidable anti-takeover 'poison pills'. I think Navistar would have to want to be taken over. Worst may be behind them now anyway, why sell out?As for VW, they never realized their goal of merging Scania and MAN and owning 100% of the result. Their executives have suffered from delusions of grandeur (or Daimler-Benz) for years. No question a Navistar acquisition would be appealing to VW. Agree with highlight. Hate to see another American Icon bite the dust.And TeamsterGrrl_ So real world, the cab is what ? 20 years old? But is it functional? Does it have decent visibiity and driver comfort? How is the Freightliner SD cab that much better for example? As a pure vocational cab seems to me it does the trick. As a "large car" cab, maybe marginal but is that their real market? I don't think so. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamsterGrrrl Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 Navistar's steel cab has been out since around 2004, and wasn't a great design even then. Since then everyone but Mack/Volvo has come out with a new cab, and Mack/Volvo will soon have a new cab too. I don't think a new cab is a necessity myself, the Mack R model is new enough for me, but to most buyers having an "up to date" truck is important. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Horse Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 Navistar's steel cab has been out since around 2004, and wasn't a great design even then. Since then everyone but Mack/Volvo has come out with a new cab, and Mack/Volvo will soon have a new cab too. I don't think a new cab is a necessity myself, the Mack R model is new enough for me, but to most buyers having an "up to date" truck is important. OK- I get your point- new cab from a "marketing" perspective. And likewise agree- R cab worked very well. And as a matter of fact, hate to see the CH cab go as from my perspective, as a vocational cab it it big enough. What are key dimensions to me in a vocational cab?-Headroom, Legroom and decent shoulder room. Now you get into a "large car" OTR sleeper tractor, and I guess you make the case that you have to be able to stand up, get in the sleeper without a lot of athletic ability etc as KSC pointed out. But IMO, all of that cab width is if anything a detriment in a vocational cab. Remember when International came out with the S series in the 70's/80's? The 90" BBC version had that extremely wide cab? Why? And looking at that Volvo F cab that KSC says will be the basis of the new Mack cab, looks like we are headed for a "Euro" style cab so I guess we better get used to "wide is better". So if you dump truck, mixer, logger etc drivers want to stand up to change into or out of your long johns/Carhartt coveralls you will be able to do that.Again from my perspective, most driver friendly vocational cabs were R model and Louisville. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jettertrucks Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 this is vw truck divison 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamsterGrrrl Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 I wouldn't make fun of VW... They've already got revered truck makers like MAN and Scania in their stable. Navistar is already using MAN's engine designs and neither MAN nor Scania make conventionals anymore and Navistar does, so it'd be a natural fit. For NAV shareholders, as long as VW pays them a bit over current market for their languishing NAV shares, it's a good deal... Why hang onto stock in a company that hasn't turned a profit in years when VW will buy you out? But is NAV a good deal for VW? Current market valuation of around 2.4 billion for a company with 6 billion in assets but 4 billion in debt is kinda iffy... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kscarbel2 Posted March 16, 2015 Author Share Posted March 16, 2015 I think the time for VW to have acquired Navistar may have passed, and from what I hear Navistar has some formidable anti-takeover 'poison pills'. I think Navistar would have to want to be taken over. Worst may be behind them now anyway, why sell out?As for VW, they never realized their goal of merging Scania and MAN and owning 100% of the result. Their executives have suffered from delusions of grandeur (or Daimler-Benz) for years. No question a Navistar acquisition would be appealing to VW. VW Group only last May finally gained control of Scania. So I suggest you're judgement is premature.The leadership at VW are car people. But they realize that, and hired Renschler away from M-B, who's a real truck guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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