Here's What Makes The International MXT Diesel Truck So Cool
To the general vehicle-buying public, the International Harvester (IH) Company probably doesn't ring a bell. Even if it does, it likely gets misconstrued as a maker of agricultural tractors, construction, lawn, and garden equipment. They sold trucks, too, but it's been a while.
Between 1961 and 1980, IH made the Scout — which Volkswagen will soon be reviving as an all-electric vehicle made here in the United States. The company sold off various assets in 1986, and the changed its name to Navistar International. Starting in 2004, it began building a line of massive, heavy-duty vehicles it called Extreme Trucks (XT). This lineup included the Commercial Extreme Trucks (CXT), followed the next year by the Recreational Extreme Truck (RXT) in 2005, and finally in 2007, the Military Extreme Truck or Most Extreme Truck (MXT).
In fact, the CXT made it on SlashGear's list of massive street-legal trucks that are basically like driving a tank. While the CXT is considerably bigger, several things about the MXT make it so much cooler than just being an extreme truck. As the MXT acronym implies, it was designed with the military in mind. Navistar Defense (a division of Navistar International) offers multiple variants (i.e., MVA, MVU, APC, Cargo) of the truck, which are used in combat operations worldwide.
Military-grade might
Navistar Defense also builds the armored combat vehicle used by the U.S. military known as the MRAP (Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected), a vehicle so tough it can survive massive IED explosions, so it knows a thing or two about building rough-and-tumble trucks.
As such, the MXT civilian model is forged around its military-grade vehicle chassis. At 21 feet long, a width of eight feet, and a height of 7 feet 7 inches — it's a foot wider than a Humvee and nearly a foot taller than a Ram Power Wagon — along with a hulking curb weight of 10,500 pounds, this truck dwarfs just about everything else on the road.
What's more, Navistar worked with Ford for nearly three decades on engines that made their way into Ford's Power Stroke line. Under the MXT's hood is a comparable 6.0-liter (a 6.4-liter was also available on some models) VT365 V8 turbo-diesel, producing 325 horsepower and 530-lb-ft of torque. Some sources claim the MXT only gets about 10 miles per gallon, and given that it has a 40-gallon tank, it has a driving range of somewhere around 400 total miles.
The VT365 V8 is mated to a heavy-duty Allison 2200 RDS five-speed automatic transmission with a two-speed Magna MP1528 transfer case, heavy-duty front (6,500-pound capacity), and rear (11,000-pound capacity) axles powering 20-inch alloy wheels; all of which gave the MXT a 4,000-pound payload capacity and 15,500-pound towing capacity. Hydraulic four-channel ABS brakes bring it to a stop as well.
The MXT was no toy
The 7-foot-long bed has enough room for most jobs. However, the bed's side walls and tailgate are so high off the ground that you must use a stool to get in and retrieve whatever you've stuck back there. Thankfully, the front and rear fenders are mostly flat, giving enough clearance for 40-inch tires, and rough steel running boards wrap around the vehicle.
Once inside the spacious cab laying on with an air-suspension system, the driver and as many as five passengers (a 3-person bench sits behind the driver) are lavished in relative luxury. The power-adjustable front captain's chairs and steering wheel are all wrapped in leather. The truck offers keyless remote entry, as well as an Audiovox DVD player screen flips down from the ceiling.
The "Limited" version had all sorts of additional bells and whistles at the time that included ivory gauge faces, plush pile carpeting, Kenwood DVD navigation, and six-way-adjustable heated seats. International upgraded the rear bench seat to captain's chairs, and instead of a seat in the middle sat a console with an entertainment system that held another CD player (with 6.5-inch speakers all around), a PlayStation 3, and DVD viewing screens in the front seat headrests.
The base model MXT had an MSRP starting at $89,500. One sold for $76,000 in April 2021 with 75,846 miles on the odometer, while another sold for $119,950 with 93,054 miles. Auto Trader Canada has one for sale (with 50,687 miles on it) for $149,995.