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Reuters says the deal is done: GM has sold their medium-duty truck business to Navistar International Corp. The deal gives Navistar "intellectual property rights to manufacture GMC and Chevrolet brand vehicles in the class four to eight gross vehicle weight range and distribution rights for GM's medium-duty truck unit." Under the new ownership, production will move from GM's plant in Flint, Michigan to an unnamed Navistar facility. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but its biggest benefit is supposedly allowing GM "to focus more on its core business of making cars and sport utility vehicles." That and pay off some of GM's debt. Or make the bottom line look good for the quarter. Or both.
16 Comments on “GM Dumps Medium-Duty Trucks...”
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Goodbye Duramax in the Kodiak/Top Kick.
Now will Navistar keep building engines for the Ford Superduties? Or now that they have their own medium-duty truck platform, just put their engines in there?
miked, Gooooood Question. A+
miked: you hit on something I’ve wondered about for a while.
I heard that the Cummins license for the Dodge Ram comes to a close in 2009 (or 2010). If Cerberus cuts corners and Navistar finally tells Ford to go pound sand after years of fighting (i.e. since Navistar now has GM branded trucks to sell) we might have a serious game of musical chairs in the big truck market.
I for one would love to see a Cummins in a Super Duty.
My understanding is that Ford is already developing their own PowerStroke successor engine. Unless that announcement was a ploy in their legal battles with Navistar.
Help me out here, I’m a little slow…so you’ll still go to the Chevy/GMC dealership to buy these trucks, they just won’t be made by GM? How will the dealership be getting their cut? Is this something that will be invisible to the (uninformed) customer on the street?
The truck line being sold off isn’t the “Super Duty” class, but the next size up. I don’t think this deal means that Navistar is out of the business of supplying engines for F250 class vehicles.
Official details are here:
http://www.navistar.com/portal/site/NavistarDotCom/menuitem.619df6dcb5f969c3a1f344ae931010a0/?vgnextoid=44869ed3d4686110VgnVCM10000085d0eb0aRCRD#
Some highlights:
“As proposed, Navistar would acquire GM’s medium-duty truck business, which includes assets and intellectual property rights to manufacture GMC and Chevrolet brand vehicles in the class 4-8 gross vehicle weight range. It also includes purchase of the related service parts business. Navistar would sell a competitive line of Chevrolet and GMC vehicles and service parts through GM’s proprietary dealer network in the United States and Canada.”
“When a deal is definitively concluded, production of the vehicles would move from GM’s plant in Flint, Mich., to a Navistar facility to be named. GM would retain ownership of its Flint plant and continue to build other products at the facility.”
“GM will continue its medium-duty truck relationship with Isuzu to market W-Series trucks through GM’s medium-duty dealer network.”
That last one is a bit of a head scratcher. The GM-Isuzu alliance is pretty much in tatters.
Navistar needed to go downstream with their truck offerings and they just bought it. Both GM and Ford have not been in the real medium duty market for several years, and Navistar is in the real medium duty market.
Nothing stops Navistar from building GM/Chev trucks and tag them as Navistar…when ford sold their medium and heavy duty trucks to Freighliner overnight they went from Ford to Sterling.
Duramax in Isuzu engine, Navistar has a DT466 that has been around for countless years, it started life as a combine engine…if anyone remembers IH’s were called “corn binders”.
The dealers that are reasonably successful inselling the present line of GM/Chev medium duty trucks will keep on going with a franchise agreement from Navistar.
So they just subcontracted out the design and manufacturing of medium duties? Doesn’t sound necessarily bad. Or undoable.
Maybe GM will buy Navistar in the future. Stranger things have happened!
jthorner: but isn’t it true that the Navistar engines for workhorse F450s and higher are conflicting with this latest acquisition? And if those fall, who knows what happens to the Powerstrokes for F250s-350s.
Reminds me of the 4.4L BMW engines in Land Rovers when Ford first bought the brand from the Roundel. The changeover to Ford (Jag) engines happened rather quickly out of necessity.
I thought the point was GM has been selling off any assets they had left due their huge losses in order to remain in business. I don’t think they will be buying anything anytime soon.
So medium duty trucks with Chevy and GMC logos on the front of them will not actually be made by Chevy or GMC (or by General Motors at all). Nice work confusing everybody.
In any case, this is clearly a sign of GM using the furniture for firewood. Not a good thing.
Does GM have anything left to sell after this? There’s Saab, but who the hell would buy that? I guess there’s Daewoo, but they would be foolish to sell that. Anything else?
Another blow for Flint. Will there be any vehicle manufacturing left in Flint after Navistar moves this truck production to another site?
This is getting confusing. Navistar will now be selling GM trucks (will GM still be manufacturing the parts and bodies shared with other models?)with Isuzu/GM engines whilst also supplying engines to Ford’s Super Duty Line. Meanwhile, Ford’s medium duty line (F-650, F-750) are powered by Cummins and Caterpillar engines. Cummins is also the sole supplier of diesel engines to Dodge. It’s like a soap opera. Everybody’s in bed with everybody else.
” but isn’t it true that the Navistar engines for workhorse F450s and higher are conflicting with this latest acquisition? ”
I wouldn’t call it conflicting. I’m sure Navistar can make plenty of engines for Ford and for the GM trucks if they want to. At the moment the GM diesels come from Isuzu, but that could change. Heck, anything could change. Ford is said to be developing it’s own next generation diesel and the ongoing legal battles between Ford and Navistar over Powerstroke engines seems destined to unravel that relationship sooner or sooner.
I wonder if at some point Navistar will merge with Paccar to try and compete with the global big dogs Mercedes and Volvo.
I agree with Geotpf, GM is burning the last of the furniture. After Saab, what is left? Nothing. Do or Die. Make money selling cars or lights out. This one should be filed under GM DeathWatch.
Looking at the press release, it appears as if GM sold GMC (mostly) to Navistar. Who would then produce Chevy/GMC branded Class 4~8 trucks for sale on Chevy/GMC lots. And also on Navistar lots????
I may be wrong, but did GM just sell branding rights to another manufacturer? Is this the opening salvo in GM outsourcing itself and becoming just a “brand,” like Nike?
Crank up Credence Clearwater Revival.
“I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin.
I see bad times today”