The Freightliner Business Class, usually called the FL-Series, is a range of medium-duty Class 5 to Class 8 trucks assembled by Freightliner from 1991 to 2007. It was the company’s first medium-duty truck, replacing the Mercedes-Benz L-Series that had been withdrawn from the United States market, and it was sold both as a straight truck and as a semitractor.
Freightliner FL Series at a glance
| Type | Class 5 to Class 8 medium-duty trucks |
|---|---|
| Production | 1991–2007 |
| Replaced | Mercedes-Benz L-Series |
| Models | FL50, FL60, FL70, FL80, FL112 |
| Cab | Mercedes-Benz LK cab with an American bonnet |
| Body styles | straight truck and semitractor |
| Bus versions | from 1997, cowled chassis and cutaway cab |
| Engines | Cummins, Mercedes-Benz and Caterpillar |
| Successor | Freightliner Business Class M2 (2003) |
| Bus derivative | Freightliner FS-65 |
The source page covers the whole FL-Series; this article describes the FL60, FL70, FL80 and FL112 within it.
History of the Freightliner FL Series
Design: a European cab on an American truck
The Business Class was the first all-new medium-duty conventional range introduced in North America since 1980, but it was not designed from a clean sheet. Freightliner used the mass-produced cab of the Mercedes-Benz LK, the Leichte Klasse or light class of 1983, which had already been fitted to other Freightliners such as the FLC112 in 1985, when a bonnet was added to the European cabover structure. Freightliner had been owned by Daimler-Benz since 1981, and because the tooling for a crash-tested steel cab is among the most expensive items in truck development, sharing a cab structure was a major saving. Ford and General Motors, by contrast, used pickup-truck cabs for their medium-duty models.
Truck models
Introduced in 1991, the FL-Series covered the Class 6–7 medium-duty market. In place of the FLC112 and most other Freightliners, which were named after their bumper-to-back-of-cab length, the first Business Class models were identified by size: the FL60 was a Class 6 truck and the FL70 a Class 7 truck. The Class 5 FL50 was added later at the bottom of the range. The FL112 is the Class 8 model of the line and replaced the FLC112 for the 1995 model year; it was the only FL truck to keep its BBC figure in its model name throughout production, and in 1995 it previewed many of the design elements that appeared on the 1996 Century Class. Engines came from Cummins, Mercedes-Benz and Caterpillar.
Bus work and the end
In 1997 Freightliner began producing the Business Class for bus applications. The Freightliner FS-65 cowled chassis was built mainly for school buses, and the Business Class was also sold as a cutaway cab for other bus bodies; after Freightliner bought Thomas Built Buses in 1998, the FS-65 was bodied by Thomas exclusively from 2001. In 2001 Freightliner introduced the Business Class M2 as the second-generation Business Class, and the two ranges were sold side by side until 2007, when FL-Series production ended.
Design and features
- Mercedes-Benz cab: the crash-tested steel LK cab kept development costs down.
- Size-based names: FL60 and FL70 marked classes rather than cab length.
- FL112 preview: the Class 8 model introduced styling later used on the Century Class.
- Bus chassis: the same range underpinned the FS-65 school bus chassis.
Freightliner FL Series versions
- FL50: the Class 5 model added at the bottom of the range.
- FL60: Class 6 truck, one of the two original models.
- FL70: Class 7 truck, the other original model.
- FL80: larger medium-duty version of the range.
- FL112: the Class 8 model that replaced the FLC112 for 1995.
- Cutaway cab: chassis for non-school bus bodies from 1997.
The FL-Series was replaced by the Business Class M2, and its cowled version became the FS-65 school bus chassis. More trucks are in the Freightliner collection.
Sources
- Freightliner Business Class (FL-Series), English Wikipedia: design, models, production years
