LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A year after first announcing it had a new flagship highway tractor under its tent, International Truck & Engine finally unveiled, literally, the new ProStar Series trucks at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.

The series — the first brand new class 8 lineup the truckmaker has introduced in six years — is a result of five years and $300 million in development, including the continuous collaboration of dealer and customer advisory boards.

The lineup, which the company boasts will “revolutionize the class 8 on-highway market in North America,” includes the standard ProStar, the ProStar Premium, the ProStar Eagle, and the top-of-the-line highway tractor the ProStar Limited. It will replace the 9400 Series and eventually take over for the 9200 series as well. Initial production will be based on 122-in BBC tractors with a high-rise sleeper configuration. The second phase of production will include additional BBCs and sleeper configuration options.

The truck, which will be built at the company’s manufacturing plant in Chatham, Ont., was designed with four priorities in mind:

Fuel Economy:

New Canadian-made flagship International truck

Styled with sculpted fenders, a sloped hood to enhance forward vision, and streamlined cab and roof shaping, the ProStar looks like it should cut through the air efficiently. Its aerodynamic shape is claimed to catapult International’s ProStar at least 9 percent ahead of the competition in terms of aerodynamic drag, and thus more than 4 percent better when it comes to fuel economy. The company also says the new truck is 4 percent more fuel efficient than its own 9400 model.

Key test applications used to achieve the design were internal Computational Fluid Dynamics, a computerized application used to optimize design in the early stages of the process and 1/8 scale wind tunnel testing for basic shape development. Then, full-scale wind tunnel testing was completed with a trailer attached, which revealed an 8 percent drag reduction improvement compared to International’s previous best-in-class model.

Driver Environment:

The company says it measured over 2000 truck drivers to pin down the right ergonomics used to design the cab and sleeper with maximum comfort, safety and productivity for all kinds of truck drivers of various shapes and sizes.

International says drivers will benefit from advanced, integrated ride and handling that is designed to reduce fatigue and improve responsiveness. The seat, the cab and chassis suspensions have been integrated and tested to complement and enhance vehicle level ride and handling characteristics.

Unprecedented Uptime:

“We spent a lot of time with customers mining their maintenance records and discussing the top causes of downtime,” said Tom Baughman, vice-president and general manager of the Heavy Truck Group. “Every targeted system improvement has been tracked ongoing from component testing through to vehicle testing to be sure we provide customers a product that stands up to the grueling and time sensitive demands synonymous with line haul applications.”

Internal test units were subjected to rigorous performance, reliability and accelerated durability tests to ensure longevity for long haul, regional haul and bulk applications. Testing included for-hire carriers in diverse applications, geographic and climate conditions. More than 25 production validation tractors have accumulated more than six million miles of road testing since late 2004, including customer test units and internal test vehicles.

Cost of Ownership:

In total, more than 60 efficient repair and maintenance features have been incorporated in the truck. For example, transmission replacement time has been reduced by 90 minutes, headlight bulbs and windshield wiper blades can be replaced by a driver or mechanic without tools. A four-piece bumper allows maintainers to replace only damaged pieces, rather than the whole bumper, in the event of an accident.

“Just as ergonomic design was incorporated into the cab to enhance the driver environment; innovations like a low-effort E-Z Tilt hood and a Tilt-Away bumper provide a walk-in engine compartment and allow easy engine and underside access,” the company stated.

Shipments of the new International ProStar to dealers will begin in the first quarter of 2007.