I never cease to be amazed by the long-term 'stickiness' of some of Biglorryblog's postings which still seem to attract comments months, even years after they first appear.. For example, back in 2005 I wrote a story on BLB about the fact that Cummins was to build a 13-litre lump in China---and I went on to speculate that this was possibly what happened to the legendary 'Project Dakota' engine of the same capacity that was very nearly launched in the States as the successor to the ISM....but fizzled out at the last moment. And the story was duly put up on TNN my good mate Gerald Woodgate who also co-hosts BLB with roadtransport.com.
Anyway earlier this month I got an e-mail from Gerald to say someone had posted a comment on the story...and here it is: "As a European Cummins employee, and also a part-time LGV1 truck driver, it's disappointing to no longer be able to drive a 44-tonne vehicle from Euro 4 onwards powered by one of our industry proven engines. The 13-litre engine bares some resemblance to Dakota in certain areas, although what I can say is it also resembles the ISX/Signature [pictured above] in others. It's a shame this engine isn't as yet available in the European truck market, it's a great engine, with plenty of grunt, taking over where the ISM finished. Watch this space..."
Now click through here for Bigloryblog's thoughts on the above...
Well in the words of the great Barry Davies..'Interesting...very interesting.' Along with the 'Peter Pan' of Her Majesty's Truck Press---Alan Bunting---I've always thought the Chinese engine was a development of Dakota although in the past this has been poo-poohed by various Cummins people. Now it looks as if Alan and I were right (I never doubted it for a minute).
So will we see Cummins' 'Chinese-six' appearing in the West (or at least North America)...? Does Cummins even want to get back into the European heavy truck diesel market in any volume? And is it too late anyway? Like our mystery correspondent says..watch this space!
JUST NEEDS 2 WORDS BRIAN,FOR THIS ENGINE TO COME INTO THE EURO MARKET(WHICH SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED ANYWAY!!!!)
PACCAR.....GLOBAL.
PERHAPS BLB HUMBLE PIES,JUST 2,SHOULD BE COOKED?!!!
I bumped into a Cummins engineer on the way back from Shanghai, but was a bit too tired to talk to him. Duh.