Hi,
moribundman - You mentioned Mack Trucks. Mack has an interesting history - some good and some bad!
In the late 1950s-1960s Mack and Saab-Scania formally collaborated on engine design. Mack was after the Swedish organisation's expertise on high output turbocharged and intercooled engines. They got it!
An interesting point too is that they used a crankshaft balancer centrifuge oil cleaner ex Scania as well
Volvo and Saab-Scania almost got married around 1975. The reason they didn’t was due to the unreliable nature of the Scania V8 engine. Volvo declared that the Warranty and production risks were too great and the deal was off!
Mack used some Renault V8 engines in their heavy trucks too - they were a problem! Mack's six cylinder engines were never as durable as Cummins, Detroit, CAT or IH (Navistar) engines
Mack was taken over by Renault who "cross marketed" their vehicles and then they both came under the Volvo Group's control. Renault is still the major shareholder in Volvo Trucks. Volvo took over White Trucks around 1980 to acquire a NA ready made dealership base
The welding together of the heavy truck manufacturers is almost complete! MB, Volvo, IVECO and MAN are really the major players. Kenworth (PACCAR) and Navistar are amongst very few others without formal ties to the "majors" in one way or another.
All of this began in the 1950s when Leland Trucks ruled the free World!
Heavy high speed diesel engine design and manufacture is now in the hands of a few - MB is the largest (via Mercedes, DD-MTU and etc)! IVECO has collaborated with Cummins, Volvo with DD-MTU and MAN's "M" combustion chamber patent is still alive and well
Cummins has been on the verge of bankruptcy on a number of occasions during the last 30 years or so - they have been a survivor so far
Supply of engines to the Truck Manufacturers is a very sensitive subject indeed!!!
It is so costly to develop a heavy high speed diesel engine that collaboration on new engine design is almost a foregone conclusion
If you look at the acquisitions of Mercedes Benz (now Daimler AG) since around 1950 it is truly amazing!
I was involved in the globalisation of their first "new" vehicle after their acquisition of Freightliner in the early 1980s. It was an amalgam of a Euro cab and NA driveline. The initial pre-road development of this vehicle took place on the "computerised road" unit 24/7 at Worth in Germany where I spent many hours! Road surfaces and geography could be fed into the computer from various areas around the world. The data had been gathered in specialised data acquisition vehicles that operated around the World including South Africa, South America and here in Australia
The first RHD road version arrived in OZ for "in fleet" user test development around 1986. Today I believe the NA assembled COE and conventional versions are the best sellers here
Freightliner (Daimler AG) took over all NA Ford production around 1998 - the production name is "Sterling" of course - the Louisville name is long dead! The Sterling name will be dead too from the end of March 2009 - I believe that the St Thomas Ontario Plant will be closed down. They will then be totally absorbed into the Daimler Trucks North America production fold and sold under the Freightliner brand
Ford's Euro truck division was sold off around 1984
Mercedes and Benz were welded together about 1927 when both were almost bankrupt They have been in financial trouble in recent years too - in 1975 and around 1987 or so. They are survivors!
