Cascadia?? Should I??

The only gliders I know of are FL Coronado and Columbia. Pete is also doing the 389 as a glider. Fitzgerald is putting all these together now. There has been talk of dumping the Columbia as a glider, but haven't checked with FL recently.

 

I believe Western Star also does gliders, but I wouldn't bet the house on it.

 

Since Western Star is also a Daimler outfit like FL, it would be good to see that kind of offering. I haven't seen one yet. The only glider that Pete offered was the 389, but it has been put out that they will be also offering the 386, if they haven't done so already. Other than that, I have only seen the FL Coronado and Columbia. A KW offering would be a nice round out to the selections available. I would think that anyone putting out trucks would want to offer a model or two for glider kits. That would increase their sales of trucks. Since most don't include an engine they make anyway, why would they care if it was a production truck or a glider kit?

 

What do you mean most dont include an engine they make anyway? They didn't years ago but that's the trend now. Daimler owns Freightliner and Detroit. International - Maxxforce/CAT, Peterbilt/Kenworth - Paccar (the engine not the parent company), Volvo... What is unusual is a company like Cummins that only produces engines and not any kind of equipment around their powerplant. Check Fitzgerald's website. If you want a Western Star glider they will build it. Doubt Kenworth will ever sell gliders they have a "corporate culture" or whatever you like to call it that each truck they build is custom built and they build them as good as it gets. I'll hand it to them they are great trucks it just sucks you cant get a T660 glider and put a real engine in it.

 

I read on fitz's websight that they do western stars & pete gliders

 

Cascadia is not a bad truck and DD15 seems to be a very good engine. However, if I could choose, I find it much better to buy a Peterbilt, Starcar or even a Coronado 2011 glider kit and put any rebuilt engine that I want.

 

Could cummins days of building and selling on highway diesel's be over soon? The OEM's may force the issue (quit offering cummin's as an option) they have their own engines to sell.

 

The port authority in the Vancouver area has restriction as to the age of the truck you can have and pick-up at the port authority's ports.

 

They are in a bad position as one of the few engine mfg's that doesn't also make a product (other than a generator) to put them in.

 

I doubt it. Cummins still offers a good product that's reliable and gets good fuel mileage. Just last year Freightliner made a deal with them and you can now get a DPF-ISX Cummins equipped Coronado. International still buys Cummins as does PACCAR. Dodge Ram light duty diesels.. It just kind of puts them behind the eight ball that they dont do anything but engines if everyone did decide to pull the plug on them.