Page 160 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Traffic along I-580 near Livermore, California in 2020
truck. They’ll follow that up with a lighter design for fuel-haulers and garbage trucks and payload haulers.” Caterpillar’s rationale for choosing a vo- cational truck was customer-driven. “Sixty percent of the customers who buy machines today also buy trucks,” said George Taylor, director of Cat’s on-highway truck group, at the debut in Las Ve- gas. It seemed the most logical place to start since Caterpillar dealers already had an established con- struction customer base.
During the three-year wait, many customers had declared their willingness to try the new Cat truck just because it was a Cat. Peterson even had a wait- ing list. Once the oohs and ahhs of ConExpo died down, those first CT660s went to work. San Fran- cisco-based Baumann Landscape & Construction bought the first one from Peterson in December 2011. Other early adopters were Anderson Log- ging (Fort Bragg, CA), JJ Albanese (San Jose, CA), Ford Logging (Fortuna, CA), and Duckworth Trucking (Napa, CA). Salem-based K&E Exca- vating bought the first Cat truck in Oregon, pow- ered by the new 15-liter engine—another NASS joint effort.
“This is the first time in thirty years that a new truck manufacturer has come onto the North American market,” said Greg Plattner, Peterson’s Cat Truck salesman, back in 2015. “The dealers just want Cat to get it right. If it takes time . . . well, just get it right and we’ll take it from there. Because Peterson can support it like nobody else’s business.”
However, the 15-liter C15 engine was only on the market for six months when Navistar decid- ed to pull the plug in 2012. The engine had been a NASS joint venture. Cat had provided the core engine block. Navistar re-engineered it to meet emissions standards using their EGR (non-urea) system. When that engine failed compliance, Navistar decided to scrap the program. The move put a decisive wedge in the relationship. In Feb- ruary 2016, Navistar and Caterpillar ended their five-year joint venture and stopped building the Cat truck.2 Navistar continued to build its Inter- national truck at its International facility in Texas using a 15-liter, emissions-compliant Cummins engine. Caterpillar took a different route.
2 Navistar built its International Truck concurrently with the Cat Truck. The models looked different but used the same engines. When the EGR emissions system failed, Navistar decided to use Cummins engines. Cat opted out.
158 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG