An important engine in the history of Cummins Inc. has arrived home to its Columbus birthplace in time to help the company celebrate its 100th anniversary.
It took a little more than 20 years and more than 1.6 million miles for the journey.
The very first Signature 600 series diesel engine produced, which rolled off the line at Plant 1 in 1998, has returned to the city that serves as the company’s headquarters because of the efforts of a former Cummins employee who played a role in its launch.
Alex Cook, then a Cummins application engineer for the Navistar account, tracked down and purchased the engine and semi in which it was installed in order to bring back a piece of company history.
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He drove the truck back from Charlotte, North Carolina, and returned to Columbus in the wee hours of Feb. 9.
“As time gets away from us, we reflect on where we were and what we did. It was a very pleasurable experience to do something like that and bring it back after 20 years,” said Cook, 54, now lead engineer for FirstGroup America, a large transportation company that also is a Cummins’ customer.
Important project
The Signature 600 was an important engine for Cummins. The 15-liter engine was replacing the N14, a 14-liter heavy-duty diesel engine used in semis.
“The reality was emissions always have been, especially the last 20 years, a big deal. It had been obvious the 14-liter engine would not be able to cut the mustard at that point in time,” said Keith Chambers, the then-vice president of new engine projects who served as the team leader for the Signature products.
Cummins’ Signature 600 was viewed as key in retaining the company’s market leadership position for heavy-duty truck diesel engine manufacturing in the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico and South Africa, the company said at the time of its launch.
“If we didn’t make a major investment we weren’t going to continue to be a participant in the market,” Chambers said, adding that the company spent about a third of its market value on the engine program.
Jim Fier, current vice president of engineering at Cummins, said starting with a clean slate was the best way to go.
“It was a good opportunity for the engineering community to take a step back and start over than just modifying what we had,” Fier said.
Back then, Fier worked on the N14, but contributed to the Signature 600’s launch in a product support role.
“We leveraged new technology and knowledge and produced a better product,” Fier said.
The Signature 600 featured technological advances that gave it more horsepower (up to 600 compared to 525 for the N14), greater fuel efficiency and a lighter weight than other diesel truck engines being produced. It also promised to last at least 1 million miles before needing to be overhauled.
It was a “smarter” engine because of fully electronic systems, and its production cost was cheaper because of fewer parts involved.
The Signature 600’s legacy continues because its DNA is found in the ISX line of engines that Cummins currently produces, Fier said.
Plans for the Signature 600 series were unveiled in July 1997, and its development continued to evolve into 1998.
Cummins spent $225 million to renovate and expand Plant 1 for the production of the engine series. Cook said the company invested about $1 billion in the engine’s development.
At the same time, Navistar was designing a new series of truck, the 9900, which would be its flagship owner/operator truck for semi fleets.
When Cook had lunch one day with Navistar’s chief engineer, Anthony Cook (no relation), also a former Cummins employee, the two discussed the importance of the two new product lines and thought it would be a good way to memorialize both by installing the first Signature 600 engine in the first 9900 series truck, Alex Cook said.
The idea was sent up the chain of command of both companies and received approval about three or four months prior to the first Signature 600 engine being built, Alex Cook said.
Additionally, Navistar was a sponsor for Petty Enterprises, the stock car racing operation of seven-time NASCAR series champion and team owner Richard Petty.
Soon after marrying the first Signature 600 with the first 9900 was approved, Navistar’s marketing group thought giving the truck to Petty would be a good idea.
What resulted, Alex Cook said, was a deal for the truck to be given to Petty for free to use as the lead hauling truck in his racing operation.
The only stipulation, Alex Cook said, was that Petty could not change the red color of the truck to his team’s color of light blue. The reason was that the engine was the same color red as the truck.
“To my knowledge, that was the only truck in his fleet that was not Petty blue,” Alex Cook said.
As the application engineer, Alex Cook was responsible for integrating the Signature 600 engine into Navistar’s 9900 truck.
Before the truck was handed over to Petty, Cummins employees who worked on the Signature 600 signed the underneath of the engine cover, and a clear coating was applied to preserve the names, Alex Cook said.
“A lot of pride and workmanship went into that. A lot of determination from a lot of employees,” he added.
Investigating whereabouts
What happened to the truck and engine over time became a bit of a mystery.
In November, Alex Cook was touring a Cummins facility that houses some of its historic artifacts, and saw an old N14. During the visit, his host recalled that Cook worked on the Signature 600 and asked if he knew what had happened to that first engine.
Cook said he didn’t know, but it made him curious enough to investigate. He contacted Navistar and gave them the vehicle identification number so historical records could be checked.
Petty kept the truck about two years, putting about 97,000 miles on it and the engine, Cook said.
The search revealed was that the truck was now owned by Mike Johnson, of Charlotte. At that point, Cook wanted to contact Johnson to learn more. However, the first attempt didn’t go smoothly.
“I hung up on Alex,” Johnson said.
It wasn’t intentional. Johnson said he thought the call was one of the many robocalls he’d been receiving lately, so he just hung up.
However, Cook called right back, Johnson said.
It was then that Cook learned the rest of the story.
‘Loved that truck’
Johnson, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam as a crew chief on a Huey helicopter, got into the trucking business in 1976.
He was an independent trucker who transported loads for the Charlotte Pipe and Foundry. Johnson said he transported cast iron sewage pipe from Charlotte to Texas, and plastic pipe on his return trip.
It was March 2001 when he bought the 9900 truck with the Signature 600 engine from Navistar, he said. Petty had returned the vehicle to Navistar, and the company was trying to sell it.
One day when Johnson and his wife Debbi were out for dinner in Charlotte, he spotted the truck — with a Petty logo on it — behind a fence on a lot, and immediately was interested with it.
Without even having been inside it or giving it a test drive, Johnson called Navistar and made an offer.
“It was a beautiful truck and had the 600 engine in it. It was love at first sight, just like my wife,” Johnson said.
Johnson, 70, used the truck for his weekly route between Charlotte and Texas, logging about 1.5 million additional miles before retiring in September 2017 for health reasons.
The truck and engine performed great and never required any major work, Johnson said.
“I really loved that truck,” he said, noting its look, the engine, the power, how well it drove, how quiet it ran and the spacious cab room inside.
The initial call he received from Cook in January was a surprise, Johnson said. Cook explained who he was and why he was calling, Johnson said, and the initial conversation led to more.
Cook said in talking with Johnson, he learned that the trucker knew the truck and engine were special, which is part of the reason why he held onto it.
Eventually in the conversations, Cook expressed interest in purchasing the truck from Johnson. Cook said he decided to purchase it personally and work with Cummins later on how to get it back into their possession.
“I knew it needed to end up in Cummins’ historical fleet somehow,” he said.
Cook said he was surprised at how good the condition of the truck was after 1.62 million miles.
“The truck was pretty much looked like it did when it came off the assembly line,” he said.
Discussions about selling the truck progressed. Cook said a truck of that age and mileage would typically fetch $8,000 or $9,000, but with the historical significance he had to pay a premium. Finally they agreed upon $32,000, Cook said.
Johnson said it was an emotional moment to let the truck go, but knows it’s in good hands.
“I think (Alex Cook) is tickled pink with it. As long as it gets to a good place and stays is all I care,” Johnson said.
Celebration role
Since Cook returned to Columbus with the truck, Cummins has inspected the engine and truck. The truck received a detailed cleaning and the seats were replaced. Plans also are for original graphics that were removed, such as the Petty logo, to be restored, and some additional lettering added, Cook said.
Fier said he’s thrilled that the engine has returned home.
“It’s a great story, and people like to see that, the history,” he said.
The truck and engine will be on display in June when Cummins has its local 100th anniversary celebration for employees downtown, and could be used as part of its marketing fleet for regional events, said Eric McCoy, with Cummins’ on-highway marketing communication group.
After that, it will be assimilated into Cummins’ historical fleet. The final resting place for the truck and engine will either be Plant 1 or the Jamestown (New York) Engine Plant, where the ISX is currently built, McCoy said.
Cook said eventually he’ll either sell the truck to Cummins or donate it to the company, because it’s important for Cummins to have it.
“I understand the piece of the history of the engine company,” he said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”About the engine” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
What: Signature 600 series diesel engine
First produced: 1998
Features:
- Dual overhead cams in engine head to deliver up to 600 horsepower
- Fuel injection system that improves fuel economy up to a half-mile per gallon
- Compact design that incorporates external parts in the engine block and head, and reduces the number of parts by one-third
- Electronic Control Module that acts as the engine’s command center and monitors and adjusts to changes in air temperature, attitude and engine load
- Regular maintenance will keep engine in working order for at least 1 million miles before overhaul necessary
- Advanced lubrication and filtration systems allow truckers to double the number of miles between recommended service stops, to 50,000 miles
Where sold: United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico, South Africa
Forerunner of: Current ISX engine series
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