Wasnt it one of the Rynarts who said that when you send Mack to Pakistan you must send Fiat after it to collect all the parts that fell off the Mack ? Built like a Mack truck ?
This R600 is the only Mack we have in the Flying Eagle yard at the moment. Last year’s city truck but now relegated to yard shunter.
DEANB has found some great Mack stories for the thread; I wonder if he could find the one where Truck sent a man to Cuba to do an article on a still-working AC?
ChrisArbon:
0This R600 is the only Mack we have in the Flying Eagle yard at the moment. Last year’s city truck but now relegated to yard shunter.
DEANB has found some great Mack stories for the thread; I wonder if he could find the one where Truck sent a man to Cuba to do an article on a still-working AC?
Do you know if it ws definately truck magazine ? If so do you know what year ■■
DEANB:
…Heres some Mack adverts .
2…
This backs up the Truck magazine test result, which gave the Mack a decisive fuel consumption advantage. Maybe I am an old cynic after all, doubting the accuracy of Truck magazine! Does anyone have a copy of the Euro Truck Test mentioned in the Mack advert? It would make very interesting reading.
Given the Mack’s clear advantage in fuel consumption, it is surprising that so few found a home in tight-fisted Britain. Maybe a day-cabbed version with the 237bhp version of the Maxidyne engine would have suited GB better? Whatever- hats off to the great engineers at Mack, who led the world with their invention of the “high torque rise” engine. Maybe that gives a clue to the F786’s success in those roadtests- Mack had been building such engines since 1967, while the likes of ■■■■■■■ and Berliet were just starting to dabble with the concept in the mid-'70s.
Found some pictures of frequent transports from Holland to Iran with Macks.
Zwaans from Alphen a/d Rijn was in charge for these Mack-exports.
Evening all,
No anorak, you are not a cynic, but posses an enquiring mind.
To asses Macks performance outside the US, and in particular in Western Europe, one really has to take an overall view of the simplistic way that the management of US Corporations viewed, (and even today), view the European market. They simply have no feel for the nuances, and fundamental cultural and legislative differences between the various countries and their individual markets. As a consequence with great aplomb, they simply make a ■■■■ of things.
Lets look at Macks stronghold in Europe in the post WW11 era, the Benelux countries, and France. The Dutch Floor family were assembling, and selling Mack product in reasonable volume. In France, MABO were a significant player in the on / off highway 6x4 market with Mack, they also had volume in the Tractor market. As with Floor in Holland, their facility to all intent was a production line assembling, and modifying CKD kits.
Then Mack is gifted the ailing Bernard operation, with an average volume production circ 400 units. Once in control, they cancel Floors Importation, and demote MABO to a Dealer status. Floor go off and create the FTF, (using up their Mack parts stock), and MABO begin to re-engineer older Mack product…taking potential sales from Mack!
Four years later, having destroyed Bernards image, with a series of most peculiar models, Mack withdraw, MABO again Imports direct, and new Importers serve the Benelux…But market share is lost.
In the UK, CTS Leasing of Bolton are the appointed concessionaire for the UK. They do have volume in the dumper market, and sell a reasonable volume via Lease Deals mainly to owner drivers or small hauliers. CTS/Mack Concessionaires do have good people working for them. The final Mack Importer into the UK prior to Renault was owned and operated by ex CTS staff Rick Roberton, and Tony Babola, and they did not only support Mack, but a lot of other US product operating in the UK, with their first rate business .
In the US Macks flagging finances are boosted in `67 by their acquisition by the Signal Corporation, and new plants are opened, and the product range deepened to attract new customers, (Mack users were a very traditional ■■■■■■■■ bunch indeed). By the early 70s Signal wanted out, and prospects looked good for a tie up with Fiat/Iveco…but in the end it cost Mack dear, the loss of key staff, who had been involved in the original project, who went away and created Magirus USA, and a loss of Dealer Network confidence.
Enter stage left Renault Vehicule Industriels, in the shape of our head, Francoise Zanotti. He saw tremendous potential in the US manufacturing system. I paraphrase from an address he gave in Paris in 80, " the adaptability of the intelligent educated blue collar workforce in the US is without equal. Their work ethic, and dedication to their job, is a lesson to French workers".........Strong stuff indeed. He saw great potential synergy on the World stage for RVI and a US partner. Had the political masters in Government allowed him to move quicker with Mack, (and indeed with the merger of Saviem and Berliet into one single entity, (he wished total integration to begin in 75, and be complete by `76)! Then perhaps trillions of FF may have been saved, and perhaps a more dynamic RVI would have trod the World stage!
That Mack was central to Zanotti`s strategy is without doubt. That there would have been more technical interchange earlier was his desire. Indeed in my own time in the US, I was very conscious that every success or setback was viewed closely. In terms of product development, modification of specification to accommodate local, (if you can call the US market local), needs were very rapid indeed, and it was obvious that a lot of resource was behind the Mack/RVI project.
My fondest memories are of the Mack people themselves, but I did, (and do), like their Trucks!
Cheerio for now
My Mack R600 with Abbas, the Salzburg crane driver with ICC
[zb]
anorak:DEANB:
…Heres some Mack adverts .
2…This backs up the Truck magazine test result, which gave the Mack a decisive fuel consumption advantage. Maybe I am an old cynic after all, doubting the accuracy of Truck magazine! Does anyone have a copy of the Euro Truck Test mentioned in the Mack advert? It would make very interesting reading.
Given the Mack’s clear advantage in fuel consumption, it is surprising that so few found a home in tight-fisted Britain. Maybe a day-cabbed version with the 237bhp version of the Maxidyne engine would have suited GB better? Whatever- hats off to the great engineers at Mack, who led the world with their invention of the “high torque rise” engine. Maybe that gives a clue to the F786’s success in those roadtests- Mack had been building such engines since 1967, while the likes of ■■■■■■■ and Berliet were just starting to dabble with the concept in the mid-'70s.
I’m petty sure that no Mack was ever in a Truck magazne Eurotest. Ive got every issue in binders and look at them regularly. I’ll have a look again, but think I would know if one had.
Evening all,
Mark R, I think that the advertisement was a bit of “selective” interpretation by the Mack Importer. Somewhere in my brain I recall Pat running an Interstator over the Belgian Eurotest route by itself. Then the advertiser picked out the provisional result, and showed a direct comparison against the genuine Eurotest Results for individual vehicles!
No doubt you will find it somewhere!
Cheerio for now.
I think you might be right. I never met Pat Kennett myself but would have liked too, I’m sure he would have been a fascinating chap to have a conversation with, the amount of detail that went into his road tests is quite staggering, although I did sometimes think there was a slight ‘‘bias’’ towards the british makes.
I don’t remember reading a Mack Eurotest. It is remarkable that they took the trouble to run the test, then declined to publish it. It would have sold plenty of magazines, with a front page that said, “US iron smashes Europeans to bits on fuel”, or something like that. I’m starting to smell another rat, and suspect that Pat Kennett was aware of it. I reckon he discovered cheating, or some non-representative anomaly in the vehicle, for example “tweaks” to the turbocharger and fuel pump, and did not want his magazine tarnished by that.
Thinking about that UK Mack roadtest, there was vary little fanfare in the text, about the fact that the vehicle’s fuel consumption was so far ahead of the European competition. It is as if Mr. Kennett smelled the rat at that time, so would not commit himself to his usual hyperbole, over what was a remarkable result. His conclusions to that roadtest stress the point that the Mack required an especially skilled driver, to get the best out of it. I wonder if the Mack technicians had stretched the “high torque rise” principle to an almost undriveable extent on the roadtest vehicle- for example with the torque reduced to practically nothing above 1500rpm- in order to get a good result on fuel?
The Superliner. The best looking Mack. With the same V8 that was fitted in the early Renault Magnums. A lot of the tractor units were converted to 6x4 tippers.
1213 by Niall Daniels, on Flickr
Whilst not the US,I took this near Hamilton,On,Canada recently.
Called to a few dealers for a nose around,and must say,the friendliest bunch I ever met!Came home laden with brochures,calendars etc!
1108 by Niall Daniels, on Flickr
At work in Toronto.
1215 by Niall Daniels, on Flickr
1216 by Niall Daniels, on Flickr
Back near Hamilton!
there used to be a R600 artic tipper used to load out of Mountsorrel quarry 10 or so years ago.IIRC it was black,and was from Derbyshire.any info on that one anyone? 
Hi All, starting as a trailer mate at sixteen I was mateing on a Scammel artic fitted with a Mack engine and a driver who would not exceed 22MPH. Also the UK agent for Macks was who we worked for until the BRS took over. The firm was Macks Hauliers with depots at Silvertown Southampton and Manchester. The other part of the family are Macks fruit and veg sales and importers of Coent Garden. ie M &W Macks Ltd.