DD back in the bus/coach business

[greatriver]

Hi Folks:

I just read that Detroit Diesel has announced it is getting back in the US bus/coach business. To me that is great news as I always felt that DD was the class of the business with a bullet-proof product. The 60 Series was a Newell staple for so many years until going with the higher HP Cat's and now Cummins to handle the added weight of the newer coaches. I wonder if the DD16's at 600 HP could be used in future Newell's in lieu of Cummins.

[fulltiming]

Newell has a history of accommodating the desires of their customers. I would think that if Detroit Diesel continues to make their engines available to Newell and Newell's customer's request the engine, Newell will install them if they will physically fit. Newell is currently using the 650 HP Cummins ISX as their 'standard' engine so it would be interesting to see the performance different with a 600 HP DD16. I have not located the physical dimensions of the DD16 versus the Series 60 or the ISX650.

[greatriver]

Michael, I agree that Newell would certainly try to furnish the engine if they could buy it and if it fit in the coach. I couldn't find the size or engine dimensions either but I did note that the DD16 had 2050 ft./lbs. of torque compaired to 1850 for the ISX 600 HP (I couldn't find specs for the 650 HP ISX). This of course is all academic as I'm only looking at used Newell's that I can afford and will be delighted with a series 60. However, it is nice to stay abrest of what is new with the company that we are all so fond of.

I do wonder why Newell didn't go with the DD16 when they wanted to increase HP above that available from the series 60. Perhaps they knew that Daimler was going to stop selling outside of the Daimler/MB family. As you can tell I'm a big Detroit Diesel fan.