Don't often see Paccar getting downgraded.

But that's what UBS has done. At the same time, Navistar has gone from Buy to Neutral, and Caterpillar has been accorded the same treatment.We wonder if this rather sympathetic treatment of Navistar takes into account the fact that its Maxxforce engine - upon which a lot of hope is being pinned - remains unproven in service at Euro V, let alone at EPA 10, rather closer to Euro VI. Mutterings of a 17 per cent fuel penalty for an EGR engine at Euro VI do rather make the ears prick up.

But we agree with whichever analyst opted to mark them all down. Paccar looks to be in an especially precarious position; it should begin to put on numbers in the run-up to EPA 10, but a pre-buy spike now looks unlikely for any of the Class 8 suppliers. Come 2010, however, and Paccar has not only to launch a new technology - SCR - onto an unwilling public, but also a new brand - the Paccar MX. That looks to be a task worthy of Hercules from where we sit. And don't forget - it also has to pay for some real estate in Mississippi; not one of he higher priced locales we grant you, but the new engine facility has cost something.

And so the question is a simple one; will European sales make up the difference for Paccar? We think not; Q3 2008 will, to our simple minds, be a bloodbath in certain major European markets. Spain has already gone to the barn with a noosed rope in its hand. The UK is teetering on the edge, and the most recent OECD forecast for the €urozone makes one wince rather.

All told, not very good.