[Bob B.]

PACCAR (Kenworth and Peterbilt) along with Autocar and Oshkosh are still 100% U.S. owned. As for GM leaving the heavy truck market, I think there were a couple of reasons they did. First, the Astro 95 and Brigadier were getting old (the General not so much, and they just introduced a set back axle aero version). The heavy truck market was becoming very competitive and it was becoming hard to make a good profit. The trucks themselves were very labor-intensive to assemble and that hurt the margins as well. GM figured it would have required significant upgrades to the trucks and the Pontiac assembly plant to remain competitive, and even if they did all that they were still looking at very little profit. The Volvo deal was a good way out.

Funny thing about the old Brigadier, even as late as 1987 it was still a strong seller, so much so that Volvo wanted to keep it in the product line after the Astro 95 and General were dropped. The Pontiac truck plant was kept open to produce the C series medium duty (they had been moved to Pontiac when Pontiac East was converted to built the 1988 GMT 400 pickups in 1987) and the Brigadier. The Brigadier was dropped and Pontiac closed when the C series mediums were moved to Janesville, WI.. Some say that a few Brigadiers were built after Pontiac closed at one of the White plants, either in Virginia or Ogden Utah, maybe as late as 1990.