Navistar says pickup market in “stranglehold”
June 30th, 2008 | by admin |CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. truck and engine maker Navistar International Corp NAVZ.PK said on Monday the U.S. pickup truck market was in a “stranglehold,” squeezed by both economic weakness and high diesel fuel prices.
During a conference call with investors to discuss the company’s results for the first six months of fiscal 2008, Dan Ustian, Navistar’s chairman, president and chief executive, said the U.S. pickup market is off 100,000 units this year.
Navistar has supplied diesel engines to Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for the carmaker’s F-150 pickup line for nearly 30 years.
Those were once the best-selling vehicles in the U.S. market but are less popular now. Earlier this month, Ford said it would delay a new version of the F-150 because of record gas prices and plummeting sales for trucks and SUVs.
(Reporting by James Kelleher; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
