Test Drive: Is International’s HX620 the Driver’s Vocational Truck?

The HX620 has a setback steer axle and 120-inch BBC, and comes only with a Cummins ISX15. Shorter models use Navistar’s own N13 diesel. Note external air cleaners and many other items in chrome or bright metal. Photos: Tom Berg

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Navistar has declared that it wants to build trucks that drivers want to drive. That includes the new HX vocational series, unveiled early this year at an extravaganza in Las Vegas.

I’ve been wanting to drive one since I saw several of the new HXs at that event, which began with a mock televised police chase involving a red dump truck stolen from downtown Vegas. It roared onto a dirt lot near The Strip, followed by the wailing police cruisers. The truck drifted right and left as it entered the lot, then ran around the area several times before black-and-white cruisers surrounded it and cops arrested the suspects.

Drifting in the dirt was not in the script, an insider said later, but you couldn’t blame the guy behind the wheel. Like I said, this is meant to be a driver’s truck and he drove it.

That red dump truck is the very truck you see here, according to Chad Semler, HX product marketing manager. He was my guide at the Navistar Proving Grounds in northern Indiana, west of South Bend.

You can bet that I didn’t do any drifting or anything else overly enthusiastic because we were being observed by the grounds’ chief engineer of operations, Brian Jacquay, who shadowed us in a Ford SuperDuty pickup with a Navistar-built V-8 diesel. He clearly was serious about safety. Besides, many years ago I learned respect for equipment and don’t like to beat on trucks. I followed Semler’s directions as I steered the HX over a gravel trail and pavement with rumble strips and other rough surface …Read the rest of this story

Source:: http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/equipment/article/story/2016/08/test-drive-is-international-s-hx620-the-driver-s-vocational-truck.aspx