Mack Expounds on Marketing Strategy for Anthem, Pinnacle
ATLANTA — Mack Trucks showed off its new Anthem highway tractor and clarified how it will be marketed relative to its long-standing Pinnacle highway model that remains available.
The Greensboro, N.C.-based OEM said here on Sept. 26 that axle-back Anthem will be a highway-only model that will give Mack an entry into the longhaul market, especially when purchased with a 70-inch, stand-up sleeper cab.
Pinnacle, often used in less-than-truckload and parcel transportation, will now be axle-forward only, a configuration often preferred by carriers hauling lots of weight.
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Anthem is designed for aerodynamic efficiency, whereas Pinnacle has a “classic look,” said John Walsh, Mack’s marketing vice president.
Roy Horton, Mack director of product strategy, said that with the advent of Anthem, Pinnacle would be aimed at both highway and vocational applications.
“It could be linehaul, heavy-haul or oilfield services for Pinnacle, and our MP8 engine is the only option,” Horton said, referring to Mack’s 13-liter power plant.
In contrast, Anthem will have three engine choices: the 11-liter MP7, MP8 or a Cummins-Westport 12-liter natural gas model.
Mack is a big manufacturer of vocational trucks for construction and refuse hauling, but Walsh said the company has been “unfairly pigeon-holed as vocational only.”
The Mack presentation was part of the North American Commercial Vehicle Show.
Randall by John Sommers II for Transport Topics
Jonathan Randall, a Mack senior vice president, said, “longhaul trucking is coming back,” and that Mack wants a piece of that market and will use Anthem to pursue it.
“We’re back into markets where we hadn’t been a strong consideration,” Randall said of the company’s longhaul effort.
Mack and Volvo Trucks North America are both part of Volvo Group, which recently raised its North American Class 8 sales forecast to 225,000 trucks this year, industrywide, from 215,000.
Volvo Group management expects 2018 sales to rise over this year’s level, citing generally positive indicators for the U.S. economy.
In addition to fuel-efficiency improvements, Horton said the Anthem’s design included input from drivers so as to add to their comfort. He said the tractor has 27 cubic feet of storage space throughout the cab in several locations.
The tractor was launched in Allentown, Pa., in mid-September.
