Market Share

No Swishy that's Western Star badged pommy ERF or Foden. (I can't remember which) Nothing to do with Freightliner.

At the Time Western Star owned the Pommy Company.
It was sold to MAN (who promptly shut It down) just prior to Freightliner buying Western Star.

FCS HaySeed

U nevr kno hoooz up hoo n hooz pay n the rent

LOL

FODEN / ERF wen the Foden Bros split
Foden owned By Kenworth......Kenworth also own Leyland and DAF to get a foot up into Euro truck n

Me Thinx

LOL
cya

The Foden Brothers split in the 1920's with one leaving in a huff and buying a farm in Australia. A book has just been published telling the story of the long running family feuds.
Around 1934 a new company was formed with Edwin Foden recalled from Australia to head it up, hence the name from his initials - ERF. The two companies operated quite seperately in the same town and it was Foden which folded first. ERF did well towards the end developing fairly modern rigs, mostly Cummins powered, but got caught out over capitalised after spending big money on new production facilities at a time of downturn in the transport industry. It suited the new parent companies to close the competition.

I work for A western Star dealership, Penske imports WS, Dennis Eagle and MAN into Australia / NZ and PNG. The numbers are NOT listed under the Freightliner banner for market share in Australia, it's just that unfortunately they weren't as high as we hoped.
DTNA (Daimler trucks Nth America) supply trucks to the USA military and as part of the agreement a certain percentage of these must be built on American soil using their labor force. the cost of manufacture and the fact that western stars are built by hand (custom built) lends itself to WS over freightliner which have a high Mexican build percentage combined with largely automated build processes.
If only Australian govt was this interested in the military and where the vehicle were built we might be a little better off and probably as patriotic as the americans.