Like their light truck counterparts, commercial truck makers such as Freightliner use concept trucks as a function test for ideas “that weren’t quite ready for prime time,” says TJ Reed, director of product strategy for Daimler Trucks North America. Most recently, Freightliner used its Revolution concept truck to test features that were later moved into the Cascadia Evolution.
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Not coincidentally, many of the body forms created for Freightliner’s earlier generation concept – the Innovation truck – were rolled forward into the development of Revolution, including an internal antenna and utilizing cameras as mirrors.
Last year, Navistar debuted its Project Horizon – a truck Chris Ito, director of innovation and design for Navistar, says was designed to make an “aerodynamic statement.”
As with both Freightliner and Ford, Ito says Navistar used journalist and driver feedback to gauge what cosmetic concepts were working and which were falling flat.
“It’s a litmus test as ‘this is our vision,’” he says. “And it kind of validates if we’re going in the right direction or not.”
“There is a lot of value in customer feedback,” Ito adds. “We have a lot of smart people here at Navistar but we need to make sure that we validate with people who will actually use the product.”
