TORONTO – As you may have heard, the Cat diesel-engine experts are launching a new vocational truck this year and the company’s sales and service network is working quickly to prepare.

The highly anticipated CT660 – built in partnership with Navistar and based partly on the PayStar — will be unveiled at the huge CONEXPO-CON/AGG show in Vegas in March.

Across the continent, some 54 Cat dealers and more than 400 service locations have been busy hiring truck technicians with specialized expertise in chassis, trannies, engines and axles, and they already have most of the infrastructure in place to deal with truck customers.

Glenn Keenan is the Vice President of Power Systems at Toronto-based Toromont. "When we committed to going down this path,” Keenan said, "we did a skills’ assessment of our technicians. We were pleasantly surprised at how skilled and prepared our technicians already were for servicing Cat Trucks from bumper-to-bumper."

He added: "As we’ve been preparing, we’ve actually changed the complexion of our dealership. And we are in a good spot to source all-chassis."  

Cat about to let CT660 out of the bag

The director of Cat’s On-Highway Truck Group, George Taylor, who is leading the launch of the new trucks, says the company’s certainly not coming into the business green.

"Caterpillar and Cat Dealers already had extensive experience supporting on-highway customers from our 40-plus-year history of serving the truck industry, especially with power trains."

According to Kerry Miller, Truck Business manager at Cat Dealership Carter Machinery, which serves Virginia and southern West Virginia, their dealership has taken an inter-departmental approach to ensure they have the processes in place to drive efficiencies.

"From sales to parts to service to any group impacted by the truck … we’re all involved and engaged, and working hard to prepare, including our training department that has really stepped up to make sure our sales team and technicians are ready."

Cat Trucks will be sold and serviced exclusively through the Cat North American Dealer network.

The Class 8 trucks will offer custom solutions, including many different body types like dump, refuse, hauler and mixer, for a large variety of job applications.