Re: Hot Asian Cars, Designed In Detroit

Sales figures for all Japanese "full sized" trucks bear this out. They've tried three times now to crack the US full sized truck market, with little success. The Nissan Frontier project hasn't even covered its design costs yet, per Auto Week. I expect that one to be yanked probably next model year.

Is this a full-sized truck?

Chrysler's parent is rather good at them.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Just a tidy looking highway car hauler.

In NA Kenworth builds some large highway and logging haulers:

TRUCKS!

This BIG TRUCK used in the Alberta tar sands trumps most:

-trucks that can carry up to 320 tons of tar sands per load, and can do a quick job on that Chrysler(?) pickup.

The Titan max. sized truck is now retired from coal logging in SE, BC, Canada. From GM's glory days! It is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's largest tandem > axle, rear dumping hauler ever manufactured.> Its maximum load is 350 tons and the box is capable of holding 2 Greyhound > buses and 2 pick-up trucks. Each tire is 11 Feet (3.4 Metres) and weighs 4 > tons.

Terex was back when GM was still an engineering/manufacturing company. Now, they couldn't build a Terex to save their asses, because they no longer have the manufacturing capability or talent to do so. Hell, they haven't even built a locomotive in the US in about 15 years, mismanaging Electro-Motive Division into a distant second behind juggernaut GE. EMD's attempts to build a 4 stroke, 6000 HP diesel prime mover have failed for years now, and many so-called "convertible" locomotives sold to US railroads still carry their "temporary" 2 stroke 710-series V-20s. Any GM rail motive power sold in the us (principally to transit systems, not even Amtrak buys their stuff anymore) is all built in London, ON, Canada. EMD's La Grange plant is mostly shuttered now, only producing parts, and then only when they feel like it.

Note another fallen good company in that article...Kaiser. Now, down south, Henry Kaiser is remembered almost exclusively for his non-profit health care system, one of the best in the country, and a continual target of for-profit health care providers and Republicans. People don't seem to remember that Henry Kaiser paved Cuba's first roads, was the primary manager of the "Six Companies" which built Hoover Dam, was the prime mover of WW II's Liberty Ships, for which he built a steel mill and shipyards on the West Coast to produce in record time, had the largest aluminum processing operation in the country for years, and who dared challenge GM at their own game, building cars. GM's Sloan found out in short order that Kaiser wouldn't be swatted down as easily as was Tucker in '48.

Sadly, the Kaiser Aluminum operation has been taken over by megalomanic corporate hustler and S&L thief Charles Hurwitz, who has to be the polar opposite of everything Henry J. Kaiser was.

Trucks so not dig coal they haul it ;)

GM did not need to swat down Kaiser/Frazer, their cars simply could not compete in economies of scale. Kaisers and Frazers were merely assembled cars. Kaiser never really made cars, only bodies. The complete drive train and accessories were purchased from other manufactures, GM, Bendix, Continental, Frigidaire etal.

mike

You have covered KF pretty well but how could you let out the Darran? ;)

mike

The Darren was intriguing and made a big publicity spash, especially with the wild (for then) paint and interior colors. Most Darrens were seen running around LA, as they were a hit with the movie crowd.

Now, if you want to talk about rare...how about that Muntz Jet?

Yes Kaiser failed, but here their Rocky mountain thermal coal operation and coal loading terminal at Vancouver live on in better hands.

I believe it was the son who lived in Vancouver for many years after starting the BC coal operations.

You are correct.

The Kaiser industrial empire was mostly scuttled by the kids after Henry J. died in '74, preferring to concentrate on the Kaiser-Permanente health care system, the largest HMO in the US, and one of the few non-profit ones. The Kaiser Jeep operation went to AMC, the Fontana steel mill was sold to the Japanese and its Eagle Mountain pit mine closed. It's quite a crime by them that they allowed Kaiser Aluminum to fall into the hands of a greedy asshole like Charlie Hurwitz, an asshole Texan who seems to delight in screwing working people more than anything else...except for his love of violating Federal laws. When Henry J. was still running things, any Kaiser entity was known to be a great place to work with excellent labor relations with their unionized employees. That still lives on at Kaiser-Permanente, but died when Henry did at the other, cast-off operations.

The Fontana mill is still operating, but no longer processes iron ore into steel. After the SCAQMD mandated that Kaiser spend millions retrofitting their coke ovens to cut emissions around 1971, which Henry gladly spent, the family sold off the mill in '76 and shut the mine, citing profitability problems. The real reason was the Nixon Recession of '74, which had priced US steel much higher due to outrageous interest rate increases, while the Japanese, due to Nixon's "laissez-faire" trade ideology, were dumping cheap steel on our markets daily. You'll also remember the shenanigans of LTV, Colt Steel and US Steel about this time, when the old "blasters" of the Monongahela Valley were finally shut down.

Later analysis showed that the Kaiser Fontana mill was still a profitable operation when shut down as a mill and sold to the Japanese, and it was obvious that the family members involved wanted to get away from industrial operations and concentrate on non-profit health care. However, in Pennsylvania, years of management neglect and greed caused the old open hearth mills to continue on using 19th century technology all the way into the '70s...they were set up to fail, and greedy management ripped off the steelworkers' pension funds. That's what caused the ERISA legislation of 1976, which Bush Bird and his handlers have been trying to kill for six years, but now have no chance..

Kaiser had converted to electric furnaces back in the early '60s, one of the first US steel makers to make the transition. After the shutdown/sell off, the former vertically integrated mill is now simply a fabrication shop and rolling mill. After selling the mill, the Japanese cut wages 50%, but were mandated to provide the same health care through the Kaiser-Permanente system. After 20 years, the USWA finally reorganized the workforce there, and wages are on their way back up...a rare scenario these days.

The Kaiser mill was originally built in 1941 to provide steel for Kaiser's shipyards on the West Coast. After the end of WW II, the mill provided sheet steel for the GM Chevrolet plant in Van Nuys, as well as the Ford Terminal Island and Pico Rivera plants. Once the Japanese took over the mill circa 1976, they engaged in predatory pricing of Fontana-rolled sheet steel, thus forcing Ford out of the area, and forcing GM to cut back production at Van Nuys. GM did stick it out until 1992 at Van Nuys producing slow selling Camaro/Firebirds. The "new" Camaro of '93 was produced in Ohio at Lordstown, much closer to domestic steel producers. This also was of dubious wisdom, as the biggest market GM had for Camaros and Firebirds was...California! It costs more to ship finished cars on auto racks 2500 miles than it costs to ship sheet and coil steel from the Midwest to the West Coast. Sure enough, the "new" Camaro/Firebird twins weren't profitable, and GM axed the line rather than admit they'd screwed up...again....still? The economic disaster that followed the closing of Van Nuys is still being felt, as middle class workers were uprooted to make way for hoards of illegal aliens.

GM...the worst there is!

I see you like a pissing contest... ;-)

Anyway, I was speaking of road-going trucks. A 320 load is illegal on public roads even, I suspect, in the USA....

Whatever, any of these are 'proper' trucks, as opposed to the light, pseudo-offroaders curiously characterised as trucks in the US...

:-) DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Duh...these are MINE trucks, not highway trucks.

Correct about Japanese and US ½ ton "trucks," which aren't. For decades, a ½ ton Ford, Chevrolet or Chrysler pickup was basically a station wagon drive train in a truck body. When you got up to ¾ ton, then things started getting more serious.