Caterpillar's line haul favourite, the venerable C15 has received a new lease of life with optimisation letting it meet Australia's ADR 80/03 standards. The engine will be available only in Cat trucks since the company withdrew from the automotive engine OEM supply business two years ago.

The engine meets Australian emission standards with the introduction of a particulate filter to meet the requirements of ADR80/03 (roughly akin to Euro 5).

The updated Cat ACERT C15 will deliver up to 550 hp and 1800 lb ft of torque.

The C15 and an all new C13 EGR engine were announced by Cat Trucks Australia on December 9.

Cat Trucks MD, Bill Fulton, explained the re-release of the C15 revamped to meet Australian ADR 80/03 uses passive regeneration technology utilizing a twin Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) system developed in the States by Johnson Matthey Technology.

Mr Fulton says the high ambient temperature in Australia assists in this approach, to meet Australian standards while it still maintains the performance and economy expectations of previous C15 users.

The system bypasses the SCR and EGR technologies used by other engine manufacturers.

The new C15s will be officially launched at the Melbourne truck show in March and will be available from the end of 2012. It will of course only be available in the NC2 marketed Cat trucks.