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IN MEDIUMS
Tom Berg • Senior Editor
GM-Isuzu leave big hole
One place where Navistar International and others
will find some sales is the big hole left by General
Motors and its former affiliate, Isuzu Commercial Truck
of North America. GM quit the medium-duty business
in summer of 2008 and subsequently closed its plant in
Flint, Mich., where it assembled Class 4 through 7
trucks. Many were low cabovers made for Isuzu. Closing
the Flint plant threw a monkey wrench into Isuzu’s
plans for the U.S., as it was left without a source of
medium-duty trucks.
Supplies of Isuzu trucks
with pre-2010 diesels are
almost gone, leaving the once-
dominant supplier of low-COE
vehicles with nothing to sell.
About 50 Class 6 and 7 F-series
trucks were left as of mid
October, and it’ll be a year
before the parent company in
Japan can supply trucks with
EPA-2010 diesels. Isuzu is
weighing options for assembly
in the U.S., including with
Spartan Motors, which will
begin building gasoline-powered NPR trucks next April.
Meanwhile, servicing of existing Isuzu and GM-badged
low-COEs will be continued by an expanded Isuzu deal-
er network; GM dealers lost their W-series franchises as
of Oct. 31.
Class 6 grows
2010 year-to-date retail
sales numbers include some
curiosities: As of August of
this year, more Class 7
trucks than Class 6s had
been sold. But Class 6 has
grown by 45 percent com-
pared to 2009, while Class
7 is actually down by about
4 percent.
This reflects a continuing
trend among buyers to
favor the lighter under- 26,001-
pound trucks so their operators don’t
need Commercial Drivers Licenses.
In most cases, a Class 6 truck will
carry as much as its owner wants
while allowing him or her to avoid
the complexities of CDL compliance.
One bit of news regarding 2007-
spec diesels is a small but important
change of heart at Ford. Unlike
other builders, Ford has not includ-
ed a switch that drivers could throw
to initiate a manual regeneration of
Navistar
declares
sales war,
2010 diesels
slide into
engine bays
2010-spec diesels from Cummins – mainly the ISB – are being installed
in Business Class M2-106
trucks, with the heavier M2-
112 also available with the
Cummins ISC. Freightliner has
numerous exhaust system designs to
accommodate many types of bodies, with
some systems keeping the back-of-cab
area clear of obstructions. The M2 continues with two-door Regular and
Extended cabs and a four-door Crew
Cab. A V-for-vocational variant has a
front frame extension for mounting a
front-drive PTO, hydraulic pump, snow
plow or stabilizers. An M2e hybrid uses
the Eaton electric-drive system with a
240-horsepower Cummins ISB. For
2010, engineers extensively upgraded
the M2’s electrical systems. A power
distribution module was moved from the
frame to inside the cab for better protection. As many as 10 Wired Rite auxiliary switches can be installed on the
dash at the factory and plugged into
later. A variety of functions can be programmed into the multiplexed chassis
controls.
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Freightliner
Sept. 7 session in Denver. “It’s us against the pack” that
includes eight other domestic and Japanese builders of
medium-duty trucks, as well as Cummins Inc., which
sells half the diesels in North America. “There is no bad
competitor,” Hebe said.
