Truck Model Roundup
Class 3, 4 & 5
It's still a product-heavy segment with something for everybody and plenty of competition.
Tom Berg
Senior Equipment Editor
As in previous years, the Class 3, 4 and 5 segment sparkles with a variety of new and proven products to make buyers happy, and strong sales to please dealers and builders.
The Big Three's conventional cab trucks dominate the market, using hoods, cabs and beds from lighter pickups, heavier-duty frames and running gear and featuring many cab and chassis choices.
Importers field fewer models – most of them low-cab-forward styles – but one offers a recently designed conventional assembled in the U.S.
There seems to be something for everybody in this area of trucks, and most builders are selling everything they can build. The continuing strong economy, which generates many tons of goods to be hauled and services to be taken to customers' doors, is the main reason.
But special pricing and financing from manufacturers spurred sales, albeit not to the extent of "employee pricing" aimed until last month at consumers.
Sales in all three classes are up by about 12 percent over last year, with nearly all the increase in diesel-powered trucks. Sales are expected to expand another 12 percent to 15 percent next year as customers learn about '07 diesels with particulate traps that will be more costly to buy and maintain.
Some think it's likely to turn into a pre-buy, like that in 2002 for heavy duty trucks – this time in all classes. And like in '03, there might be a serious slowdown in early 2007. Builders with overseas experience in diesel particulate filters might have a technical and competitive advantage.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Katrina's devastation may boost truck sales as the Gulf Coast works to rebuild its infrastructure. However, much of any boost may be in the heavier weight classes.
Most of the product and marketing activity is from DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors, who offer the widest range of truck models and continue to update and expand them.
For the '06 model year, GM announced stronger powertrains for its pickups and vans, with some of that componentry also scheduled for use in heavier Class 4 and 5 conventionals. This should include a more powerful Duramax diesel, which will be boosted to 360 hp and 650 lbs.-ft. – up by 35 hp and 40 lbs.-ft. It'll be the strongest pickup engine available, at least until competitors react.
Will spiking fuel prices cause buyers to think again about wanting more and more power? Time will tell.
Dodge's Ram pickups get more consumer-oriented features, including electronic entertainment gear. But the new Ram Mega Cab, available on all series including the 3500, might also be useful in a workday. It has an extended cab and long rear doors for considerable back-seat passenger room and extra stowage behind the seats. Rear seat backs recline for naps and fold down two ways for maximum storage capacity. Mega Cab comes with a 6-foot, 3-inch bed taken from the 2500 Quad Cab.
The economical but sprightly Sprinter Eurovan is making inroads in Class 2, and there's a heavier Class 3 model 3500 cab-chassis that can take a variety of specialty bodies (see accompanying story). By early '06, only certain Dodge dealers will be selling the Sprinter, with DC deciding that this should be a Dodge truck. Some Freightliner dealers, which were the first to sell the new-to-America vehicle, are losing their franchises, but reportedly with compensation from DC.
Really big pickups are the latest fad among truck nuts, with International's Class 7 CTX being the biggest and potentially heaviest around. It has received massive amounts of positive publicity from the general media, from ga-ga reports on network news shows to a humorous review by Tonight Show host/automotive collector Jay Leno in Popular Science magazine. Only a few hundred are likely to be built because prices start in the $90,000s and the truck's high stance makes it difficult to load anything without machinery. But it can pull a weighty trailer and offers maximum bragging rights.
International also showed off a Class 4 RXT pickup, but has not announced any sales plans for it. The RXT is not as high and therefore more usable than the tall CXT, and actually resembles Really Big Pickups now being sold by Ford and General Motors.
Ford's F-450 and 550 chassis can be fitted with strengthened pickup beds from Accubuilt Inc. The upfitter receives cab-chassis vehicles, where it reinforces Ford beds with extra crossbeams and panels, and installs them on cab-chassis vehicles at its plant in Lima, Ohio.
Each truck gets a 50-gallon fuel tank along the frame, and the full-size spare tire is stowed below the floor at the rear of the bed. An F-550 pickup will carry 11,300 pounds in its bed and tow up to 24,900 pounds – weights not unusual for horse and RV trailers as well as equipment haulers, Accubuilt says.
General Motors introduced its own RBP during the '05 model year. It comes on a Chevrolet Kodiak/GMC Topkick C4500 or C5500 chassis and a bed built by Monroe Truck Equipment from GM parts and installed at a Monroe modification center. For '06, the Duramax diesel gets more power and torque, the Allison 1000 automatic gets a sixth gear. There's also a higher-rated front axle, optional exhaust brake on 4x4s, and improved comfort for three-passenger seating in Regular Cab models. Many are bought by consumers who want to own the biggest pickup on the block, but we've seen several doing serious work pulling loaded equipment trailers.
Returning to really commercial vehicles, Hino Trucks USA might still be thought of as an importer, but all of its trucks are now assembled in California from mostly American components. Only engines, cabs and some transmissions still come from Japan. The new conventional-cab models have totally replaced Hino's highly regarded low-cab-forward vehicles, to the chagrin of some loyal users who have refused to switch to the cab style that most other buyers want. Conventionals have always been King among North American truck operators, which is why Hino converted to that style and its executives are glad it did – because sales are up 77 percent over last year.
Early orders for the new conventionals included some from Penske Leasing, which like Hino, has car racer-turned businessman Roger Penske's Penske Corp. as a major investor. One might think a sister company would favor Hino with business, but not so – Hino says it had to bid against Freightliner and International to get orders. Lease and rental customers like the Hinos enough that Penske has ordered many more, the company says.
Other builders have jumped into the low-cab-forward segment with new products. The International CF and Ford LCF, which are clones built on a Blue Diamond assembly line in an International plant in northern Mexico, are adding new competition to this market. GM-Isuzu Commercial Truck, which dominates this segment, believes they will also bring new awareness of the advantages of the low-cabover in congested urban areas.
So while Isuzu and GM-branded LCF may lose some market share – boosted to nearly 84 percent so far this year by special pricing, financing and renewed customer service – it and other builders of LCF trucks might gain more unit sales. Any brighter glow of acceptance in the marketplace would make still another entry – this one from Sterling Truck – most timely. In early to mid-2006, it will begin selling a Class 3 to 5 LCF sourced in Japan from Mitsubishi Fuso, a DaimlerChrysler sister company.
Welcome to the party.
Truck Model Roundup continued...
