At a recent dealer meeting, Mack Trucks urged its sales force across North America to put more effort into selling its Pinnacle range of long-haul articulated tractors, to augment what has, in recent years, become the Mack brand’s traditional mainstream offering of so-called vocational trucks. The implied broadening of its market focus will be seen in many quarters as a ‘back to the future’ move. For many decades, as an independent US-owned business and later, through the 1990s, as a subsidiary of the French Renault group, Mack competed in all class 8 segments with equal vigour.
However, since Mack became part of the Volvo AB group in 2000 – under the terms of the deal which saw the Swedish company gain control of Renault’s global truck operations – the legendary bulldog badge has appeared on fewer and fewer long-haul tractors. The group’s North American strategy has, until now, been to push long-haul buyers towards its Volvo-branded chassis rather than their Mack counterparts.
For many decades, as an independent US-owned business and later, through the 1990s, as a subsidiary of the French Renault group, Mack competed in all class 8 segments with equal vigour.
The Swedes clearly realised the more prestigious, higher-profile position of over-the-road tractors, as opposed to the rigid dump truck, cement mixer and waste collection vehicles to which they assigned the Mack brand. Not unreasonably, it seemed at the time, Volvo was keener to promote its own name among North American truckers than that of its new US subsidiary brand.
Until 2008, while class 8 sales were booming, truck buyers were glad to get early delivery of whatever vehicles were available. For some years now there have been no markedly inferior truck models which should be avoided. But then came the quite sudden advent of what amounted to a buyer’s market, brought about by the economic downturn. Long-haul class 8 sales plummeted, to a much greater extent, percentagewise, than those of vocational heavy trucks. It meant Volvo sales suffered proportionately more than Mack’s.
Patriotism, and the wish to ‘buy American’, as a means of supporting US industry, began to figure more prominently in buyers’ thinking. It can be quite reasonably claimed that the market downturn brought about a change in truck marque perceptions, subliminal or otherwise. It was noticeable that the downturn hit the Volvo brand more severely than those of its main competitors, namely Daimler‘s Freightliner, Paccar‘s Kenworth and Peterbilt, and Navistar‘s International.
Patriotism, and the wish to ‘buy American’, as a means of supporting US industry, began to figure more prominently in buyers’ thinking.
Some observers have argued that Volvo’s unashamedly non-American brand name was instrumental in turning away newly patriotic class 8 buyers, those who a year or two earlier would have happily specified its VN models. Even though market leader Freightliner is German-owned, many in the North American trucking fraternity are either unaware of that fact, or turn a conveniently blind eye. As far as they are concerned, Freightliner is an American brand in a way that Volvo is not. But crucially, in today’s tough sales climate, its sister brand Mack retains its all-American aura, hence the latest Volvo group brand position manoeuvring.
Apart from the cab, the Volvo VN and Mack Pinnacle are technically close in specification. One is no more or less American in content than the other. They are powered by the same Volvo group engines assembled at the group’s modern facility in Hagerstown, Maryland, though many key powertrain components are shipped in from its Skovde plant in Sweden. The automated manual transmissions (AMTs) available on both VN and Pinnacle models are also renamed versions of the Swedish-made I-shift units now widely specified on European Volvo and Renault heavy trucks.
The automated manual transmissions (AMTs) available on both VN and Pinnacle models are also renamed versions of the Swedish-made I-shift units now widely specified on European Volvo and Renault heavy trucks.
Some five years ago, Volvo attempted, for quite understandable manufacturing cost reasons, to rationalise production of its Volvo and Mack branded class 8 trucks in a single plant – its long established New River Valley (NRV) facility in Dublin, Virginia. But the move contributed to labour disputes over demarcation issues between existing NRV employees and those brought in from Mack plants. In the wake of a series of strikes, Mack production was taken away from NRV and is now centred on a plant in Macungie, Pennsylvania.
That manufacturing separation has helped Volvo AB in its fresh determination to differentiate the two brands, as part of the effort to highlight Mack’s all-American credentials. With the benefit of 30 years’ hindsight, and acknowledging Daimler’s class 8 market success after retaining rather than ditching the Freightliner name, one can speculate that when Volvo first established a foothold in the US heavy truck market, through a take-over of the ailing White/Autocar operations, it should perhaps not have swept those brands aside quite so precipitately.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
