Flower Industries, a Georgia-based baker of snack foods and bread, has taken delivery of the 50,000th gasoline-powered Isuzu/ GM N-Series low cab forward (LCF) truck. The company, which distributes its products throughout the Southeast, already has 2,000 gas-powered N-Series trucks in its fleet.
Flower Industries switched from step vans to the LCF N-Series in 1994, the year General Motors Isuzu Commercial Truck began offering the gasoline engine option. “We moved to the cab-over because it allows us to carry more product than the step van,” says Greg Jenkins, director of procurement and packaging. “And we liked the gasoline engine because most of our routes are low-mileage and don't justify the cost of diesel.”
The Isuzu/GM gas N-Series is produced at GM's Janesville, WI, plant using GM's 6-liter V8 and 4-speed HydraMatic heavy-duty automatic transmission. The cab, chassis and other drivetrain components are delivered from Japan in kit form, and the trucks are assembled on a dedicated line. Currently the plant produces 5,000 of the gas N-Series a year.
