Correct me, Howard

[John Hofstetter <hofs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 08:54  AM, mark stegmann wrote:

> Thomas,
> A couple years back Ford sold their big truck line.
> They are now called Sterling. I want to say Mercedes
> owns it, but I might be wrong.
Sterling was in production before it acquired the Ford truck line.  But 
Sterling was acquired by Daimler in order to help them control even 
more of the truck market.  Daimler with its Freightliner domination of 
about 50% of the truck market in the US, not to mention its other truck 
offerings, was in a good position to make life difficult if not 
impossible for International and Pacar.  I see a lot of fire trucks, 
small buses, and small school buses now with the Frieghtliner name on 
them.

I would guess that the California Department of Forestry is the largest 
purchaser of fire trucks in the US.  They, for many many years, only 
bought Internationals, partly because they were great trucks, but also 
that allowed them to consolidate their maintenance and repair of the 
fire trucks.

Unfortunately, in my opinion and in the opinion of the CDF guys that I 
know, the state bowed to pressure and now gets a variety of trucks, 
including Freightliners.

California Highway Patrol used to use only Dodges, but now have all 
kinds of makes of cars.  Totally irrelevant, Mark, but I felt like 
saying it.

John