![]() As the guys from Navistar like to point out, the International ProStar was the first real cab off the aerodynamic rank way back in 2007. The reality is however, that all American manufacturers now have a slippery-shaped prime mover for the US long-haul market.įrom the Freightliner Cascadia, Kenworth T680, to the Volvo VN and the newly launched Western Star 5700EX, a streamlined bonnet and cab is now the new face of trucking in the US. The aero look of most new American prime movers is at odds with the flat, portrait style radiator grille and vertical snorkels and stacks that we associate with a big American conventional. The enduring image of American trucking is often a Peterbilt 379 or Kenworth conventional with a towering chrome shrouded snout, but emissions targets are now also mandating fuel economy for Class 8 (heavy-duty) vehicles. The circuit has a mix of highway, and off-road circuits, and like most test facilities it has lots of very interesting bits of gear tucked away to be flogged around the track when nobody is looking. From the baby TerraStar 4×4, the WorkStar vocational hauler to the ProStar highway hauler and of course the range topping LoneStar, International’s king of bling.ĭuring the summer months, Eaton’s 600-acre (243-hectare) facility is pretty much booked solid with manufacturer testing schedules, training days, customer drive days and of course the occasional bunch of blow-in media, like us. But that day at the Eaton test facility located in Marshall, Michigan we were introduced to a cross-section of the International range. It’s probably fair to say I’m easily amused. He even takes some pictures for show and tell. A black International LoneStar glittering in all its retro chrome glory and his reaction is only marginally more mature. Only days earlier in the United States, a bigger kid of the adult variety finds himself standing in front of the real thing. The LoneStar tends to have that sort of effect on people. “Wow, I’m taking this to show and tell!” he squeaks as he scurries out of the room. Inside the box is a scale model of an International LoneStar, the hero of the American International heavy-duty range. He looks up at his old man “Can … can I have it?” Wide-eyed, he says “Is it for me?” Recently in a small town in regional New South Wales, a five-year-old boy stood staring in wonder at the contents of the box that his dad had just given him. Now go eat some jerky.Matt Wood heads stateside to get his hands on a big shiny International LoneStar and satisfies the super trucker within. Jealous of all your chrome and smutty magazines and check shirt the size of a tent. Of course, there’ll be plenty of leather-suited moustache-wearers who will moan that the LoneStar HD drags the good name of Harley-Davidson yet further into the mud (remember the Ford F150 Harley-Davidson ute?) but don’t listen to them. Suffice to say you won’t be challenging that IS-F in an off-the-line drag race, mind. Performance? Well, that’ll depend how many of the aforementioned smutty magazines you’ve loaded into your LoneStar. The LoneStar HD is a special edition of International’s ‘Class 8’ big rig, powered by a 12-litre turbodiesel that puts out a modest 600bhp but – ready for this – almost 2000lb ft of torque, channelled to the road through an 18-speed gearbox, which is one more gear than the Lexus IS-F. Puts the boys’ piteous big-rigs to shame, doesn’t it? Imagine blasting down Route 66 in this, country and western blaring out of the giant speakers, stash of smutty magazines on the seat beside, wearing a check shirt the size of a large tent, mercilessly turning cute roadside mammals into roadkill. ![]() ![]() ![]() Take a look at this, the LoneStar Harley-Davidson Special Edition, a monster, blinged-up semi (which is a category of lorry, we believe) from Navistar International.
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