From the classifieds: Ford Louisville

The Big Ford mightn’t have achieved KW cred’, but the powertrains were the same. We remember one Queensland fleet operator who bought Louisvilles and spent some time giving them his own ‘pre-delivery’ – tightening everything and adding wiring harness ties – before putting them into service. He reckoned they were then as reliable as much more expensive prime movers.

This particular ‘Louis’ caught our eye on trucksales.com.au listings. It’s a 1998 model, which means it was the last generation Ford before the whole shebang was sold off to Daimler and rebadged ‘Sterling’ thereafter.

This Louisville, with Hamelex White body and 2000 Sloanebuilt three-axle dog tipper trailer is listed for a very attractive 55 grand plus GST. It’s had a plenty spent on it over the last six months and has been repowered with a Cummins N14 Celect Plus 480hp ‘crate’ engine and new radiator that has done only 350,000km. Also, its 18-speed Eaton Roadranger has recently had a partial rebuild.

Equipment looks good with air rear suspension, ‘cleanskin’ tyres with 60-80-per cent depth, twin 350-litre fuel tanks, aluminium bull-bar, recon’ steering box, heated mirrors, power windows, window tint, central locking, new stereo with Bluetooth hands-free for phone, UHF CB, beacon, near-new air-conditioning including compressor, ISRI 6860 driver’s seat recently reconditioned and engineer-certified, new complete fibreglass dash and new windscreen headlights and grille.

The trailer has BPW axles and air suspension, two-way tailgate, recon’ bin floor and ‘cleanskin’ tyres with 40-60-per cent depth.

Truck and trailer have manual-wind Everlast tarps with new sliders.

In the early 1960s Ford USA realised that if it intended to remain in the heavy truck business it needed a truck range that was competitive with purpose-designed Class 7 and 8 prime movers from Mack, Paccar, White and International. The proposed L-Series, with a mixture of petrol and diesel power, would also have great market appeal in Australia.

As well, Ford hoped its largely petrol-powered light-truck F-Series would continue to have niche-market presence Down Under.

It turned out exactly that way: the Louisville was a huge success and ‘our’ version of the F-Series – the Ranger – is number two in the ute market.

Sadly, in 1997, Ford USA made the decision to abandon nearly all its heavy truck business, so there was never a Louisville successor.

The Louisville was a natural fit in the Australian market, once RHD engineering was done and the specifications carefully chosen. We’re indebted to Colin McKenzie – chief engineer of the Australian project – for his input.

The models selected for Australia were based on three different bumper to back of cab (BBC) dimensions: LN600-7000 had 2420mm BBC; LN and LNT800-9000 had 2370mm; L and LT had 2675mm BBC, but with forward-set steer axles, and the LS and LTS with the 2675mm BBC, but with set-back steer axles. T models were tandem-drive and 00 models had petrol power, while 000 models were diesels.

Intrinsic to the project was Caterpillar’s involvement. Cat developed a new 3208 V8 diesel with 175hp and 210hp outputs, as the exclusive engine in the 7000 and 8000 models.

Missing was a COE version, but Ford had no pressure in the USA to derive one, owing to the law in the USA that allowed unrestricted-length prime movers. Ford’s previous COE efforts – the H, C and CL – never achieved market success in the USA against White, International, Peterbilt, Kenworth and Freightliner.

A weak link was the Louisville’s lack of linehaul cred in Australia, against Kenworth, Mack and Western Star ‘hero’ trucks. The LTL long-bonnet Louisville was developed to compete, but never quite made the grade.

In the mid-1980s, streamlining was all the rage, so the LTS9000 Louis’ was reshaped into the Aeromax design. In 1992 the LTL9000 received the Aeromax treatment.

In 1995 the HN80 upgrade, with a new chassis and cab, was announced, but two years later the whole Louisville product line, assembly plant tools and parts business was sold for a song to Daimler’s Freightliner Division. Ford kept the naming rights and blue oval badge, so Freightliner revived the dormant Sterling brand and designed a new oval badge to replace the Ford one.

Ford’s Louisville, Kentucky, factory was reprogrammed to provide F-Series trucks.

The Australian Louisville variants sold in their thousands: 15,171 were assembled in Ford’s Melbourne and Brisbane plants between 1975 and 1998, and many drivers will remember them fondly. In fact, as we found out recently many people keep them and restore them to their former glory.