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[Red Horse]

FL Lighten up! I'm glad you feel so good about your FL 50. I'm just offering another opinion. As for the sales stats I quoted, they are out of the July issue of CCJ. And I just received the Oct. issue of Light & Medium Truck. They have 8 mos ytd sales class 3 (10,001 lbs. ) to class 7. Ford is number one at 95,377- adrop of 1% from 99, International is two at 46,710- virtually no change, GM/Chev is three at 31,292 a gain of 18 %, and FL is fourth at 29,085, a loss of 2%.
If you want to talk about class 8, you are correct- FL owns the market with 83791 units last year to Internationals 41,648. Are they that good? IMO, they have bought the market share. Talk to any dealer in the heavy business. There are literally THOUSANDS of late model FL 120's sitting in huge lots around the country. And Jim Hebe, FL's CEO is making speeches about how the used truck business has been ruined! Guess what- He ruined it! You can't discount 500 truck sales to contract carriers or outfits like J B Hunt and not raise hell in the market a few years down the road. As much as I hate Ford's current management, I hate to say that their decision to get out of class 8 was in part motivated by the predatory pricing of Freightliner. In my book, Freightliner has a long range strategy of waiting everyone else out. We will see. You live in Kingston? If you ever go across I-84 to Hartford, there is an FL dealer with about 200 NEW "large Cars". A Sterling dealer told me the guy had 400- I'm being conservative. Can you imagine what the floor plan costs on that many trucks would be? With DCX earnings in the ash can, it is a matter of time before someone puts a tough look on FL and then we will see how things shake out.

And as for my *****ing about Fords options, yes I do- remember I'm one of those loyalists. They do have a good truck, but if I have 15 oil trucks on cast wheels and I don't want to go to discs, I should be able to spec what I want. And it is their class 7 sales that are pitiful- in part because of their past specs. For example, in the Northeast, 33,000lb trucks are the norm for house to house fuel oil and propane bobtails. But, you need a 10/23 combo- not a 12/21 combo. Ford has finally announced a 10/23 combo.

Well enough rambling-again I apologize if you took offense to my comments. By the way, I checked your profile- HVAC? I assume you haul ductwork with your FL 50. That explains why you can live with 3:31 gears. Must be very fast but I assume it can smell a hill?