American LaFrance going to the trash heap?

This just in from International Trucks.  Not sure how the bankruptcy at American LaFrance will affect this ‘deal in the works’.

Latest Navistar Information

Note: Link is from the latest submittal from International Trucks

Here is the story if the link fails to load:

Navistar Unveils Prototype Low Cab-Over Engine (LCOE) Truck

At this month’s Waste Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, Navistar presented a prototype vehicle based on an existing American LaFrance low cab-over engine (LCOE)—a product especially relevant for waste/refuse haulers in the market for front-end loading trucks.

While details of the proposed joint venture are still being determined, the plan is to provide operators in the waste and construction industries with an International® Class 8 LCOE chassis configuration, which is typically required for front-end waste trucks, to go along with its conventional configuration.

The two companies are currently working toward a definitive agreement on the joint venture to develop, manufacture and support this new vocational truck. But the plan is for the two industry leaders to work collaboratively to make enhancements to the existing LCOE chassis from American LaFrance.

For example, leading up to the January 2010 EPA emissions milestone, Navistar will eventually be engineering these new vehicles with MaxxForce® engines and MaxxForce Advanced EGR technology; this would make the International LCOE the only such chassis on the market without a urea-based SCR (selective catalytic reduction) system.

And while the vehicles will build upon the engineering platform of American LaFrance, the use of proprietary components from Navistar, as well as the company’s vast dealer network, are both expected to enhance the appeal of the truck throughout the North American market.

Coming a few months after Navistar’s signed agreement with Caterpillar to develop heavy-duty trucks for vocational markets such as road construction and mining, Jack Allen, president of Navistar’s North American Truck Group, praised the benefits of the potential collaboration with American LaFrance.

“Working with American LaFrance is another example of Navistar’s strategy of growth through leveraging our own assets and those that others have built,” said Allen. “This relationship provides us with another way to meet the needs of customers through a new line of vocational vehicles.”

Manufacturing of the International LCOE is expected to begin in 2010, once agreement between the two companies is finalized.