A boring, humdrum question, but I was wondering: Both Ford and GMC make heavy-duty commercial trucks: the F-450 up to the F-750 and the GMC/Chevy 4500 and up, respectively.
So why doesn’t Dodge have any entries in this class of trucks? Is it because DaimlerBenz markets the commercial trucks (such as the Unimog) under its own name? That would explain the lack of heavy trucks after the merger in 1998 - what about before then?
Actually, Dodge (well, really Chrysler) does. They don’t have a steroidal version of the Ram, like Ford and Chevy do with their pick ups, but they have something similar. Now, you’ll have to forgive me, but it’s late and my mind’s kind of fuzzy, so I don’t remember all the details, but Chrysler owns one (or more) of the big rig companies like Sterling and/or Freightliner (possibly more since they merged with Benz) who handle the “oversize” trucks. Chrysler just chooses not to slap the Dodge name on any of them.
Chrysler, it should be noted, went through some rough times in the late 1970s/early 80s, and did some desperate/stupid things before they became stable. For example, one of the company heads before Iacocca, had the bright idea of firing the engineering or design department (I forget which) in order to make for a fatter bottom line. That basically screwed the company, big time. In order to make up for the sudden cash crisis which this created, they sold off their European division, and before he managed to get the government bailout, Iacocca had to sell off their military products division (the Abrams tank was originally produced by Chrysler). Dodge dumped it’s Ram van line shortly before the merger because Ford and Chevy were outselling them. The Dodge Sprinter van currently on sale is a rebadged Mercedes van.
Tuckerfan got it. DC owns Freightliner(IIRC Sterling is the “New” Ford big rig company. They split it off several years ago) Also if you pay attention some of the Sprinter vans have Dodge logos on the grill, and others have Freightliner tags(IMO the Frightliner tags look better).
I also seem to recall that there was a 4500 and 5500 size Dodge trucks sold in Mexico, but for some reason could not be imported to the US. I don’t remember where I read that tho.
-Otanx
I’m a loser!
All the UPS trucks I see around here are Dodge. Is that the “Sprinter” van y’all are talking about?
The Sprinter is a rebadged M-B, also sold under the Freightliner brand. They are quite common in Europe.