NAVISTAR’S PLAN COMES TO FRUITION

[Red-faced editor Lockwood must apologize for the glitch that sent this issue out earlier today without text attached. Sorry, folks! — R.L.]

Let’s head to Mexico first, where Navistar built its first International ProStar+ tractor with Cummins ISX15 power last week at its plant in Escobedo, near Monterey. That engine had selective catalytic reduction (SCR) aftertreatment, of course, not exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) alone as with the ill-fated MaxxForce 15, now disbanded. The Cummins re-entry into International trucks follows Navistar’s decision this past summer to give up on its troublesome EGR-only technology path.
 

"The plan that we’ve laid out over the last few months has come to fruition," said Jack Allen, Navistar’s president, North American Trucks and Parts, during a sit-down chat we had a couple of weeks back. Mark Belisle, president of Navistar Canada, also joined in. 
 

They’ve actually built 15 ProStars with the ISX engine, as promised back in July, and another 285 of them will go down the line in the last three weeks of December. Navistar says it has orders for more than 1000 ProStar+ trucks with the ISX15.
 

"We haven’t been great at this [in the recent past]," said Allen, "so it’s very important to us as we hit this re-set button that we achieve milestones and hit those commitments.
 

"Those 15 will be sellable units but we’ll see what we learn at the plant and take a couple of weeks to get things ironed out before we send more down the line. Come January it will be full, open production of the ProStar with the ISX engine. That’s our high-runner product. So the next step is the 9900 and the 5900 [with the ISX15]. The 9900 will get the ISX15 in April, the PayStar 5900 in June." 
 

"That’s a critical piece for the Canadian market," added Mark Belisle, referring to the 5900. "The on/off-highway market, the logging market, that’s a business we haven’t really been in for the last couple of years. This is really critical to western Canada and Quebec."