Most iconic Mack truck by way of historical past? We requested, you answered

Mack Vans‘ large new-model reveal is scheduled for tomorrow: 

Although he could not reveal loads in regards to the truck, one man who’s gotten a take a look at it, Hell Bent Xpress proprietor and 2024 Overdrive Small Fleet Champ finalist Jamie Hagen, may say a bit about it. „Right here’s a truck that once you see it, it’s extra aerodynamic” than you suppose, he informed me a pair weeks in the past once we additionally talked in regards to the auxiliary A/C he is put in in one in all Hell Bent’s Anthems. “It appears to be like very aggressive, very industrial. Like when you see it you suppose ‚Mack‘ immediately. ‚That is an aggressive truck.'“

A self-described „aerodynamic man“ — Hagen’s famously wrung 10 mpg-plus out of his personal Mack Anthem as an owner-operator — he nonetheless nonetheless desires a truck to seem like a truck ought to, he stated. Mack’s new unit’s aimed to ship the perfect of each worlds in his thoughts. “I misplaced my thoughts once I noticed it,“ he stated. „That’s what this factor appears to be like like. It’s fairly darn aggressive.”

You won’t be shocked the place Hagen got here down within the polling under — we requested readers a number of weeks again to call their very own favourite amongst Mack fashions all through historical past. This is how the alternatives shook out. 

Maybe the very most aggressive of all of the Mack fashions took the biggest share of the vote. Trucker Tim Stine famous formative reminiscences of his dad’s Tremendous-Liner rising up. „I bear in mind listening to that V8 when he was getting near residence and driving my bike up the road“ to „soar in for a trip again residence,“ he stated.

And sure, the Tremendous-Liner was additionally Hell Bent Xpress proprietor Hagen’s selection, having grown up within the Nineteen Seventies/’80s through the OTR mannequin’s heyday. „I used to be an enormous Tremendous-Liner man,“ he stated. He thinks of them by way of look as „form of the way you would describe a bulldog,“ Mack’s mascot, after all. „‚They’re so ugly they’re cute.‘ The hood is so flat. It simply goes straight out, with the grille the scale of a home, virtually. It at all times simply appeared to represent that period, the Nineteen Seventies and early Eighties.“

Along with owner-operator Jerry Kissinger’s 1991 Mack mannequin within the collage on the prime of this story, notable amongst Tremendous-Liners featured right here in Overdrive lately was this 1986 mannequin, V8-powered, from proprietor Thomas Menges, caught on the 2023 Mid-America Trucking Present.

Coming in a detailed second within the voting, different R Collection Macks have been famous by many amongst ballot respondents because the truck they realized easy methods to drive in to start out their careers. Rob Wilson „ran Macks again within the day,“ too, he stated, together with a wide range of R fashions. „As a younger man I went on a tour“ of a number of Mack amenities along with his native dealership proprietor, Ben Bruckner, Wilson added. „He was a very nice man. I knew him for a few years.“

Some cited the film Convoy inspiring their selection of the R Collection mannequin within the ballot. Proven within the picture assortment up prime is a restored RS700 truly utilized in that movie, the rehabilitation work spearheaded again virtually a decade in the past by small fleet proprietor Anthony Fox.

Learn owner-operator Seth Taylor’s 2019 tribute to the longtime unique proprietor of this 1984 R mannequin, Carl Nyhof, by way of this hyperlink.

In Mack Vans‘ manufacturing historical past, the R Collection picked up the place the Mack B Collection — readers‘ third-most-common selection within the polling — left off. 

Diane Eschen, proprietor of the 1962 B-61 featured within the collage up prime and in our Reader Rigs sequence in 2020, famous „Miss Marge“ stays in restoration mode to today together with a 22-foot 1948 Fruehauf trailer. She „does make journeys to varied truck reveals,“ Eschen stated, with the „190 Thermodyne engine, duplex tranny. Husband and nephew have been doing the restorations. Miss Marge has slightly little bit of this and slightly little bit of that.“

One other memorable B Collection restoration, of a 1960 mannequin, introduced slightly bit of an entire lot, and was featured in this 2021 story in regards to the work. 

Mike Flake constructed the one-of-a-kind 1960 Mack B75 over the course of two-and-a-half years. He believes from his analysis it’s the solely or one in all only a few B-model Macks with a stretched hood in the US.

„My first truck was a 1965 B-75 Mack,“ famous Russ Wright about his selection of the B Collection within the polling. Merely put, he added, „I want I had by no means offered it.“

The corporate’s historical past stretches farther again than fairly nicely each present Overdrive reader’s reminiscence, after all. Subsequent week on the New York Worldwide Auto Present, April 18-27, on the Jacob Ok. Javits Heart in New York Metropolis, Mack and the New York Auto Present collectively commemorate twin a hundred and twenty fifth anniversaries, a feat not many corporations or occasions attain.

A Mack AB tractor, the primary high-volume commonplace manufacturing truck from the corporate, will characteristic within the Javits Heart’s Crystal Palace, the place the auto present will show motor automobiles that debuted over the past 125 years. As a part of the media preview day April 16, Mack is internet hosting a press convention that can speak about pioneering applied sciences all through the years, as nicely the flagship Mack freeway Class 8 automobile being launched tomorrow, April 8.

The Mack AB mannequin that will likely be on the auto present was inbuilt 1925. Produced between 1914 and 1936, the Mack AB mannequin was geared up with a 30-horsepower four-cylinder engine. Finally, the engine’s horsepower was elevated to a grand complete of 60.Mack Vans

Entry April 8 reporting from Mack’s new mannequin reveal in Brooklyn, New York, the place the corporate was based, by way of this hyperlink. 

[Related: Can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch: Junior Elmore’s 1984 Mack Super-Liner]