GM, Ford, and Chrysler heavy trucks

Paccar use DAF 105 engines (Paccar MX), designed and developed in Europe,

International put MAN D28 engines under hoods with Maxxforce Label and MAN EGR/Exaust filter system!

 

Chrylser at some point was bought out by Daimler A.G., who are the current owners of Freightliner and Western Star (and also bought out Ford's heavy truck division and manufactured them under the Sterling badge). Don't know the timeline of this, but it may have had something to do with it. IIRC, that division of Dodge wasn't very big. I think only something like 250 (give or take) of the Bighorn trucks in some five or six years of production. Don't know how many of the cabovers they made. Dodge 1000, I think that one was called?
I've driven a couple Ford products... one was an 85 L9000 dump truck, one was a 93 L9000 Aerodyne dump truck with a snowplow, and I've driven an LTL9000 (don't know the year). All hat Cat motors and 13 speeds. On the dump trucks, I remember if I flipped the range selector up before I came out of fourth gear before going into high range, something would grind. I'd have to come out of gear, flip up the range selector, then go into my next gear in the high range in order for that not to happen.
I've driven a couple of the Sterling trucks, as well (which were the Ford AT/LT series, now manufactured by Daimler A.G.). Spacious daycabs. Dash panel was a bit too dumbed down for my liking.

 

<<<My question: why do you think that none of these huge automakers could survive in the truck business while other US-based companies focused solely on truck production, such as PACCAR and Navistar, are still major forces in the heavy truck market?>>>

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...so here goes. The super-dooper styling of this sleek, streamlined workhorse may be a good place to start when analyzing what happened:

Concerning Dodge's offerings that I am familiar with, the above models were a big fav of the car haul fleets. Height and BBC I guess influenced all that back in the day of short trucks. Hard to look at but they hauled a gazillion cars and trucks over the years. This was a "later" model with the single headlights...my actual first truck was one of these beauties but it was an even older model (1962 IIRC) had dual headlight buckets on each fender that unbuckled and swung out, hinged at the radiator area. An earth-moving Cummins NH185 and a "turned around" 10 speed gave me a top end that, while me & Bessie (my truck) may not break the sound barrier, we came close to crackin' it a time or 2 when we got a long enough downgrade. Stopping? Forget that. Many of these early Dodges were supplied with "wedge" brakes on a single drive axle that were more akin to a gas pedal than a stopping device. And the wedge brakes would also let go at night when they were parked and roll back into a favorite happy hour/hotel if one did not properly chock his rubbers real good. Don't ask me how I know this. Or how many times the wedge brakes caused a number of drivers to pucker up. Took me a long time to figure out that the "wedge" was not the design but actually the moniker came from the puckering action of the operator's derriere and the placement of his BVD's after the realization there was no longer any assistance in stopping forward motion. Talk about bunching up the seat covers...which brings us to another fine area of high-tech offerings from the FARGO Brothers...later labeled The Dodge Boys or The Good Guys. The seats were anything but a place to actually sit. A cardboard case of the cheapest truck oil one could find was the passenger seating compartment until a few gallons were removed and run through the Chessie Cummins...which took a day or two at best.

I'm not sure you wanted all the gory details but your post brought a flood of old memories about these ol' flop-fendered trucks. Dad owned and drove similiar style Dodges with gas engines hauling cars back in the day. Instead of spare engines or transmissions back in that day, Dad had spare trucks. I remember several of these old gas job Dodges in the back field as Dad would be away hauling cars. I'm an old codger now but I was just a wee tad when I climbed up in one of them and fired her up and took a stroll around the back forty, unaware I was ripping down guide wires for the stand-alone TV antenna trying to grab some of the television rays being broadcast from K-Town up over the Jellico Mountain and into our living room. Mom stood on the back porch shaking her finger at me as I coasted to a resting place and climbed down and made my way around the TV antenna tower I just laid to waste. Good thing it run out of gas. Untelling what I'd hauled away that day.

Dodge actually made some very unique models for car haulers WAYYY back in the day. They used the similar cab design, if you can call that a design, but they made an extended hood, rather squared and somewhat lower. Not offered to the general public via dealerships, they were only used, as far as I know, by a company called Clark Transport in the Chicago area. Maybe they made them especially for them because the only ones I ever saw were there. My uncle got hold of one later in the day and restored it somewhat and installed a KT600 in it. Unreal...the nose cone had a homemade badge and he called it "TRUCK".

There's a lot of history with these Ugly Betty's but I'll quit. You got me wanting to go dig out some old pictures...if I can find them.

​

 

Because they were proof that some big companies make crappy products. The Ford trucks were like Jeeps, they would rust before they left the factory. They had stupid designs like two firewalls with the air valves mounted in between. So replacing a brake valve required a torch and ended with melted hoses. I don't think anyone who owned them and had to work on them were sad to see them go.

Not to mention the wiring, sadly I think Volvo took off where the other crappy companies left off. It was well known if you look outside and see the lights on your truck on and you know you turned them off.......call the fire department. We had one burn up in a truckstop parking lot while the driver was eating.

 

First truck I looked at when I was going to buy one was a '97 Ford LTL9000...475 Cat, 13 speed Eaton transmission, 3.55 Eaton rears, 11R24.5 tires.

It drove real nice...for a bobtail. Pulled hard, shifted smooth...and the price wasn't bad, either.

Problem was, nothing electrical worked on the truck....no lights, windshield wipers, jakes, etc. If a dash switch operated it, it didn't work. There were a ton of things unplugged behind the dash, that it may have just been a matter of figuring out what all was supposed to be plugged together and making the connections...but I couldn't afford to spend time trying to figure it out while making truck payments.

I've got 3 Ford pickup trucks and an old Ford 8N tractor...so the LTL9000 would have fit right in here in my driveway....but I needed a truck that could be put to work on day 1.

Maybe someday I'll get one....or not.

 

I've driven an old Ford Aeromax, with like a 36" flatop sleeper that you had to crawl through a HOLE to get into lol. The truck road and shifted (9spd) very smooth but, it was ugly as sin inside and out lol.

looked allot like this one:






American Trucker

 

I loved CHiPs, i used to watch old reruns of it every morning before school.




American Trucker

 

The first truck that I bought was a Ford. It had a 238 Detroit with a 7 speed. You could hear me coming for miles. There were some interesting trucks back in the 60's and early 70's. Most people probably don't know it but at one time trucks were manufactured locally. There were dozens of brands. This was before the national highways were in place. Does anyone remember the old Brock or Autocar? GM sold a lot of trucks at one time, mostly cabovers. One model in particular had a lot of glass in the front. GM bought out White and later sold that division to Volvo. It was actually a pretty good truck from what I remember.