Navistar putting MWM up for sale?

According to US news agency Bloomberg, heavy duty truck maker Navistar Inc. is exploring its options for MWM, its South American truck-engine business. One option may be to sell the unit.

Last May, this newsletter posed the question: Navistar: has it too many engine plants? Clearly the issue of Navistar International’s engine overcapacity, coupled with a growing closeness to Cummins Inc., suggests the topic of conversation in Navistar’s board room has stretched beyond the fate of its three engine plants in the US.

The Lion roars again

Blog readers with a good memory will recall the arrival of the Lion diesel engine from Ford’s Dagenham Engine Plant – the first Ford production engine to use compacted graphite iron (CGI) for the cylinder block material.

Now Ford has repeated history with the arrival of the first gasoline engine with a CGI block. Ford, ever resourceful and expansive in its choice of words, uses the word first liberally. The new 2.7-litre gasoline engine is not the first gasoline engine with a CGI block, but it might just be the first ‘production’ gasoline engine with CGI.

VW sees nine per cent growth

Volkswagen Passenger Cars delivered 893,400 in the first two months of 2013, compared with 818,800 (+ 9.1 per cent) in the same period last year.

The delivery level in the month of February was almost unchanged, with the brand handing over 401,400 (February 2012: 399,700; + 0.4 per cent) vehicles.

Christian Klingler, board member for sales and marketing for the Volkswagen Group and the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand, said. ‘We compensated for weak markets in Western Europe with growth in the Asia-Pacific region and in Central and Eastern Europe.

Hotfire engine plant set for a benchmark?

Will JaguarLandRover’s (JLR) new engine plant in Wolverhampton, UK, establish an industry benchmark? That is the question many are asking as work gathers pace to bring this unique plant to the first stage of fruition.

Ratan Tata, Tata Motor’s supremo will hope so. He will expect it to be ‘best-in-class’ when he comes to tour the plant in the final stages of shake-down as production gradually ramps up.

At the Geneva Motor Show, executives announced JLR would add a further £155million to its original investment commitment of £355million making it a genuine £500million plant

Cummins V8 is ‘still in development’

The 5-litre V8 diesel engine, originally slated for Chrysler, is ‘currently in development’, according to sources at Cummins Inc. in Columbus, Indiana.

A company spokesman said Cummins was ‘not ready’ to discuss engine details (like bore and stroke) publicly, adding ‘We are currently formulating broad communications plans and would rather not say any more about this engine program at this time’.

He added: ‘As an independent engine supplier, Cummins constantly pursues all potential customers at various levels. In the on-highway world, Cummins typically will let a major OEM announce the availability of our engines before we discuss details of the engine with the media.’