Pirelli, the Italian tyre giant, and supplier of tyres to the F1 circus, is being sold to China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) in a €7.1b ($A9.8b) deal that will see one of Italy’s most iconic brands under Chinese ownership.
In an address to the company’s staff, Pirelli chairman and CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera told employees the move would strengthen the company both in China and the rest of the world.
Dad’s Tonka Truck
“The agreement with the Chinese will have no impact on employment,” he said. “The opportunity with a partner like ChemChina is for the company to become bigger and to have a more effective penetration of the Asian market. Our factories and employment in general.”
Tronchetti Provera also confirmed the company’s headquarters and research and development would remain in Italy, and the quality for which the company is known would not be affected.
I wonder if the new owners might produce F1 tyres that can last more than eight laps?
Tonka Truck for Dads
Ford’s F-750 truck is a life-size version of the Tonka. The F-750 Tonka was unveiled at America’s NETA Work truck show last week. It is a fully functioning real-life truck nearly 7m long by 2.5m tall.
Believe it or not, the F-750 it is based on and its F-650 sibling are models in the Ford line-up and can be used for many jobs including tipping and hauling. Some customers simply fit them with regular trays and treat them as personal monster truck utes.
Ford may be about to start building right-hand-drive Mustangs but none of the F-series trucks, including the tough F-350, F-250 or all-new aluminium bodied F-150, will be built with the steering wheel on the right.
The F-750 Tonka truck will be sent on a tour of various shows around the US before it gets to work. It won’t be available as a full-time production model, but there is nothing stopping a customer from buying one, painting it yellow and fitting the dumper tray and Tonka decals.
Its regular steel dump tray, built by Truck Tech Engineers, can carry nearly eight tonnes of rocks or sand. The new F-750, which has just been introduced in the US, has a gross vehicle mass rating (which includes the weight of the truck and the load) of up to 15,000 kg.
It’s far too heavy to push and is therefore fitted with a 6.7 liter Powerstroke V8 turbo diesel that at peak tune puts out 246 kW/983 Nm. The transmission is a six-speed automatic with torque converter. There is also a power take-off fitting, which allows the engine to drive an external accessory such as a concrete pump, a crane or in this case, the tipper mechanism.
Customers can also choose a massive 6.8 liter V10 (239 kW/624 Nm) but don’t even think about the fuel consumption! Ford says this petrol engine is easily converted to run natural gas or LPG, which it describes as more “cost effective” alternatives to petrol.
