Mack Trucks

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mack Trucks, Inc.
legal form Incorporated
founding 1900
Seat Greensboro , United States
management Kevin Flaherty
Branch Commercial vehicle manufacturer
Website www.macktrucks.com

Mack Trucks, Inc. is a US commercial vehicle manufacturer . The company was founded in 1900 as the Mack Brothers Company and has been part of the Swedish Volvo Group since 2001 .

Mack AC Series truck traveling in California in 1917
Mack AC series trucks from the 1920s on display in a Los Angeles museum
Mack Granite Dump Truck and Driver in North Carolina in 2011

Products

The Mack brand is primarily known in the USA for heavy trucks for long-distance transport and the construction industry . It has a reputation for producing robust vehicles, which has found its way into the American saying “built like a Mack Truck”. As usual for North American truck manufacturers, long- nosed vehicles, which are particularly popular there with independent truckers , play an important role in the Mack range. What is unusual for US manufacturers, on the other hand, is that Mack has traditionally developed the diesel engines and transmissions for its own vehicles, while with other North American heavy-duty trucks these parts usually come from suppliers (diesel engines from e.g. Caterpillar or Cummins , transmissions from Eaton or Allison ) and can be freely selected by the buyer - an option that Mack also offers on some models.

history

The company emerged from the Stellmacherei Fallesen & Berry in the New York borough of Brooklyn , which was acquired in 1893 by the brothers John M. Mack and Augustus F. Mack . Soon afterwards, the company began manufacturing automobiles under the name Mack Brothers Company from 1900 and moved to Allentown , Pennsylvania in 1905 . In 1911, the last five Mack brothers involved sold their company. A major new investor was the JP Morgan bank , which also held shares in the Saurer Motor Company in Plainfield ( New Jersey ) and produced Swiss Saurer trucks under license. At the instigation of Bank Morgan, both companies were merged on September 23, 1911 to form the International Motor Truck Company . The share capital amounted to 2.6 million US dollars ; both stamps were retained for the time being. The new holding company coordinated the sales of the Saurer Motor Company and the manufacturer renamed Mack Brothers Motor Car Company .

During the First World War , Mack delivered over 6,000 trucks to the armies of the United States and Great Britain , which became the basis for the special reputation of Mack vehicles. British soldiers compared the look of the Mack trucks to bulldogs at the time , making the bulldog the brand's mascot and continues to do so today. The legend of the Mack trucks has been used, updated and immortalized in many American films.

Another reorganization took place in 1922. Saurer was given up, Mack became Mack Truck, Inc. The International Mack Truck Company was founded to sell the Mack Trucks, the management of which was entrusted to long-time Saurer sales manager Robert Edison Fulton.

In 1938 Mack presented its first own diesel engine. 1956 the Brockway Motor Company was bought. In 1964 Chrysler planned to take over Mack, but abandoned this request due to antitrust concerns.

The French Renault group acquired 10 percent of the shares in Mack Trucks in 1979, increased its stake first to 20% in 1982, then to 40% in 1983 and passed it on to its own commercial vehicle subsidiary Renault Véhicules Industriels (RVI for short) in 1987 . Finally, Mack Trucks was fully acquired by RVI in 1990. In 2001, Mack became part of the Volvo Group together with RVI ( Renault Trucks since 2002 ). The company's headquarters were relocated to Greensboro , North Carolina in 2009 .

Passenger cars

The brothers made a steam car in 1894 and an electric car in 1896 . These remained prototypes . Several vehicles with gasoline engines were built between 1903 and 1904 . They were sold under the brand name Manhattan .

Reception in the media

A Mack truck comes e.g. B. in the films Mad Max II - The Executor , Cars , Convoy , Once Upon a Time in America , The Battering Ram and On the Move .

literature

  • Ronald G. Adams: Mack trucks . Motorbooks International, 2002, ISBN 0-7603-1237-0 (English).

Web links

Commons : Mack Vehicles  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • Official website. Retrieved July 22, 2013 .
  • Mark Theobald: Fickling. Coachbuilt.com, 2011, accessed on July 22, 2013 (English, via Mack and Saurer USA - scroll to paragraph about Robert E. Fulton).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Flaherty Named President, Mack Trucks North American Sales & Marketing. Mack Trucks, Inc., December 19, 2011, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Tom Berg: I want it, I want it - You can't have it! In: Heavy Duty Trucking Magazine. July 2005, archived from the original on January 9, 2009 ; accessed on July 22, 2013 (English).
  3. ^ Stan Holtzman: American Semi Trucks . MotorBooks International, Osceola (Wisconsin) 1995, ISBN 0-7603-0038-0 , pp. 68 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ^ Chrysler Drops Plans To Buy Mack Trucks . In: Schenectady Gazette . August 18, 1964, p. 28 ( online archive on Google News [accessed December 30, 2015]).
  5. ^ Corporate Mack History 2000–2009. Mack Trucks, Inc., accessed July 22, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 919 (English).

Coordinates: 36 ° 4 ′ 50 "  N , 79 ° 57 ′ 53"  W.