Walking into a garage at the Navistar Proving Grounds in northern Indiana yielded an unexpected sight: a tough-looking sleeper-cab tractor parked several lanes away. “What’s that?” I asked my hosts. “That’s what you’re driving,” one replied, then identified it as an International HX tractor, set up for heavy hauling.
Read about the HX test drive here.
I was there to drive an HX, the builder’s premium vocational model, but expected it to be a dumper or a mixer. That it was a tractor shouldn’t have surprised me, because both truck and tractor versions were listed in the introduction of the original HX about seven years before. I guess the sleeper compartment threw me off, but yes, sleepers are optional in the series.
Navistar improved the HX in 2019, but the Covid 19 pandemic overshadowed the trucking industry and life in general, so the then-new model received comparatively little attention. That’s why I asked for this drive.