Even though Cat didn't delight every one of those customers (who could?), there were seven J.D. Power & Assoc. awards for customer satisfaction with Caterpillar on-road engines.

More difficult to substantiate, but relatively easy to imagine, is Taylor's claim that Cat and its 58 dealers here have relationships with the buyers of 70% of the vocational trucks sold in North America. If the company has managed to translate a reasonable percentage of its customers' requests concerning vocational trucks into CT660 features, the industrious embrace of the Cat dealer network is likely to displace a significant number of competitors' trucks on job sites. Taylor says North American Cat dealers staff more than 400 locations and 2,300 truck-specific service bays with about 2,500 service technicians. The network operates more than 100 chassis dynamometers.

A competitive truck, competitively priced with other premium vocational trucks, is going to turn the heads of a lot of truck buyers. Especially those who are already accustomed to doing business with Cat dealers (the only dealers who will sell Cat trucks in North America) and have already bought into Cat's lowest-life-cost value proposition.

CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2011 Booth Nos. G-130 and N-1913