Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) recently announced the closure of joint venture with Navistar International Corp. (NAV). The 50/50 joint venture, NC2 Global LLC, was formed to pursue global commercial truck opportunities outside North America.
 
NC2 will develop, manufacture and distribute commercial trucks in markets outside of North America and India. The company said that the initial focus would be on Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa and Turkey. NC2’s product portfolio will include both aero nose and cab-over designs and will be sold under both the Caterpillar and International (Navistar) brands.
 
Both Navistar and Caterpillar have named three people to the joint venture’s Board of Directors and Caterpillar Group President Doug Oberhelman will serve as Chairman of the Board.
 
Under a separate agreement, both companies will together produce heavy-duty vocational trucks for the North American market. The company said that these trucks will be co-developed by Caterpillar and Navistar and manufactured at Navistar’s facility in Garland, Texas. The trucks will be sold and serviced through the Caterpillar’s dealer network in North America.
 
The vocational trucks are targeted at customers who operate in a wide variety of vocational applications, such as earth moving, quarry, waste, mining, general and heavy construction, logging and road construction. The company said that these trucks will complement Caterpillar’s existing product line and enable its dealers to support customer needs from extraction through delivery. They are scheduled for full production in mid-2011.
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