International to drop Detroit Diesel from databooks

ATLANTA (Feb. 14, 2002) — International Truck & Engine will drop Detroit Diesel engines from its databooks starting in October, the company’s president said yesterday.

Steve Keate, speaking at a heavy-equipment manufacturer’s forum in Atlanta, said International trucks will be available with Cummins and Caterpillar engines after October, but not Detroit Diesel.

The decision was a difficult one, but “we just can’t try to be all things to all people,” Keate said. “It comes back to what we’ve been saying for a while, which is that to be successful you’ve got to leverage scale.” Keate said the company has invested millions to accommodate changes from other manufacturers as they re-work their engines to comply with tougher emissions standards coming into force in October. International does not have to comply with the new standards until 2004.

“You’ve got to have the R&D capability and volumes necessary to support the kind of investments we’re talking about,” Keate said. “It didn’t make any sense for us to continue to invest our resources in a company that, quite frankly, is owned and controlled by a primary competitor.”

Detroit Diesel is a subsidiary of Freightliner parent, DaimlerChrysler.