Navistar Unveils HX Series, First New Truck Since 2010
With the debut of its HX series, International Truck has launched a new Class 8 truck for the first time since 2010, intending, it said, to regain its lead in the vocational market’s severe-service segment.
The truck maker, a division of Navistar International Corp., said the four models in the HX series will replace the PayStar brand, which it introduced in the 1970s and refreshed in 1999.
“The launch of the HX series is an opportunity for International to recapture a leading position in the vocational market,” Navistar CEO Troy Clarke said in a statement.
Bill Kozek, president of North America trucks and parts for Navistar, told Transport Topics the vocational segment is dominated now by a combination of Paccar Inc.’s Kenworth Truck Co. and Peterbilt Motors Co. brands operating “where the 15-liter engine is preferred over the 13-liter.”
Kozek spoke with TT in a phone interview shortly after the model was unveiled in Las Vegas during the World of Concrete exposition.
International’s current strength in the vocational segment is “really just in the municipalities,” Kozek said. “We haven’t been in oil-field services, the mixer business, heavy haul, the heavy dump truck for some time, since we haven’t had a 15-liter, which was 2010.”
The HX series “helps us get back in,” he said.
Two of the HX models come with Cummins Inc.’s ISX15 engines, and two others with Navistar’s N13 engines, the company said.
Longbow Research analyst Neil Frohnapple said, “We believe the new models, such as the HX series, will help reinvigorate Navistar’s brand following a few years of Class 8 market-share losses.”
International had underinvested in developing new truck models, he said, as it spent the past several years focused instead on switching engine technologies in all of its vehicles to meet the 2010 federal emissions requirements. International’s original choice of emissions technology failed to meet the standard.
“With the company’s portfolio of trucks now incorporating selective catalytic reduction technology,” Frohnapple said, “we think this is a good signal to the market that the company is investing capital again in new trucks.”
International is launching the HX series during the week the U.S. Department of Commerce reported that construction spending in 2015 was $1.1 trillion, up 10.5% compared with $993 billion spent in 2014.
Kozek said the truck maker feels “pretty good” about the timing of the launch.
“The oil and gas segment is obviously down, so it is not perfect for that,” he said. “But the price of oil is going to go back up; it’s just a matter of when. So we think it is a good time to introduce [the HX series], and it gives us an opportunity to grow into it.” International received about 350 “order commitments” for trucks in the 24 hours after the HX series debuted, he added.
Kozek joined Navistar in 2013 after a 26-year career at Paccar Inc., where he served as vice president and general manager of Peterbilt.
Frohnapple said that, although it was too early to predict whether the HX series “will lead to a significant impact to the company’s sales in the near term, we think it is one piece to the puzzle that should help enable Navistar to regain market share longer term within the competitive Class 8 market.”
International said discussions with fleets in the severe-service sector helped focus the new brand’s designs.
The HX515, HX520, HX615 and HX620 models are designed, respectively, for applications including heavy-haul tractor, platform stake/crane, concrete mixer, construction dump and refuse/roll-off and crane, the company said.
Three models come with a set-back axle configuration, and the HX520 comes with a set-forward axle for either a truck or tractor, International said. The HX520 model will be formally unveiled in April.
Separately, an investment team whose principals include the Smithfield Group and Kensington Capital Partners announced last week it has purchased Navistar’s Pure Power Technologies unit, a fuel-injection systems business. Terms were not disclosed.
Navistar will continue to be a major customer, as Pure Power Technologies will be the truck company’s primary supplier of high-performance diesel fuel-injection systems through a 10-year agreement, Pure Power Technologies announced.
