Caterpillar Inc. and Navistar International Corp. Sept. 29 announced they will continue their collaboration on vocational and on-highway trucks for global markets including a cabover vocational truck.
The companies said they plan to build and sell a cabover-engine Cat vocational truck that would be sold globally. The companies said they will finalize terms of this new business in the coming months.
In June 2008, the two companies announced plans to form an alliance for the on-highway truck business. This led to a 50/50 joint venture called NC2 Global LLC that focuses on development of on-highway trucks for markets outside of North America.
The two companies also have an agreement to produce Cat heavy-duty vocational trucks for North America. Customer deliveries have started for the Cat CT660 vocational truck, which was unveiled at the ConExpo/Con-Agg 2011 trade show.
The companies announced they will restructure NC2. Under terms of this new relationship, NC2 will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Navistar. Also, through a new brand licensing agreement, both International and Caterpillar branded trucks will continue to be distributed through both International and Caterpillar dealers outside of the United States.
“This next phase will move the relationship to a structure and business model that will be similar to the business relationship we have with Navistar for our North American vocational trucks,” said George Taylor, director of Caterpillar’s Global On-Highway Truck Group. “As we have looked at the success of the Cat vocational truck launch in North America, we believe that a similar business model for commercial trucks for the rest of the world makes the most sense for our customers,” Taylor added.
In addition to the truck business, Caterpillar currently provides remanufacturing services to Navistar and is also a key supplier of engine components for certain Navistar engines. Navistar currently supplies engines to Caterpillar for certain power generation and marine applications.
