Just in case you hadn’t noticed, International Truck and Engine Corp. has been doing quite a bit of product re-branding lately. Back when they decided (or had to) jettison the “Harvester” from their name, they tried renaming the company (but not the trucks and engines themselves) Navistar International.

That did not fly too well in trucking circles although few can argue “Navistar” is not a good name for a truck company whereas, let’s face it, “International” is pretty darn generic.

So they moved onto calling the truck- and engine-making operation International. The truck and engine models got that name as well while Navistar was reserved for the holding company.

The latest move on the branding chessboard is to keep that all in place but to start ditching the aged numeric series designations in favor of such snappy and descriptive monikers as ProStar, TranStar, CityStar, DuraStar, PayStar and WorkStar.

I say keep it up! I could never keep the numbers straight (whether International’s, Peterbilt’s, Kenworth’s or whoever else’s) that tell you which truck model series is meant to do what. Plus what’s wrong with trucks, work tools that they may be, coming with a bit of built-in (badged-on?) personality right off the factory floor?

By the way, it’s only been recently I’ve stopped hearing fleet owners call the trucks “Harvesters” and that may be due more to a changing of the generational guard than any hotshot marketing.

Now if only someone could bring back the Brockway Husky…now that was a truck name!