Despite Dan Ustian's upbeat comments, it's interesting to note that overall Class 8 sales have once again been revised southwards, with Navistar now expecting a total market of between 235 - 245,000 units this year.

No doubt Navistar has done well in the face of some far from favourable market conditions, and, leaving aside both he military and school bus business, its ProStar range has certainly caught the imagination with a number of high profile fleet deals.

But if the big fleets are buying ProStar, they're not buying something else. Which means that Navistar is taking business - at, we hear, something of a discount - from the other OEMs. Quite who is going to come out worst in the North American market remains to be seen. Quite what happens to Navistar in the crunch year that is 2012 may also prove interesting. We reckon that it needs to capitalise on its current purple patch, and, once again, we'll point towards a conversation with VW about a piece of MAN.