Ford Motor and Navistar International today finalized plans to form a joint venture to build medium commercial trucks.
The joint venture, named Blue Diamond Truck Company LLC, will initially produce Class 6 and 7 medium commercial trucks that will be marketed independently under the Ford brand and Navistar's International brand.
The trucks will be produced at Navistar's plant in Escobedo, Mexico. Eventually, Blue Diamond plans to expand the range of commercial trucks for both companies.
A new common chassis based on International's recently introduced high performance chassis will be used for commercial trucks, rated 18,000 to 33,000 pounds gross vehicle weight. Jack Allen, newly named general manager of the truck joint venture, emphasized that Ford and International will separately determine their customers' needs for cabs, interiors, vocational focus, nomenclature and other brand characteristics.
International-branded trucks will exclusively use International I-6 or V-8 engines. Ford-branded trucks will offer International diesel engines as standard and other industry engines as options.
Prototype production of the Ford truck will begin later this year with full production scheduled for late 2002. International's new high performance medium truck is already in production. Initially the joint venture will produce Class 6 and 7 medium trucks, but plans call for expanding output to include lighter weight Class 3 to 5 commercial trucks (10,001 pounds to 19,500 pounds). The first such vehicle will be a new specialized commercial truck due in 2003.
The joint venture will also furnish truck and diesel engine service parts to Ford and International and explore other advanced diesel engine opportunities.
Ford and Navistar are both contributing intellectual property to the Blue Diamond joint venture. Additionally, Navistar is contributing a major portion of its Escobedo truck manufacturing facility, while Ford is making a cash contribution to the 50-50 joint venture. Each company will have equal representation on the venture's eight-person executive board, and neither company will have an equity stake in the other's parent company.