AUSTIN, TX – Mack Trucks president Dennis Slagle admits that North America’s truck makers are still living through a “hangover” when it comes to sales. “The over-exuberance at the end of 2014 introduced a lot of orders into the system,” he says. “The retail shelves were full, and that affected the number of trucks moving around.”

But that is hardly dampening the company’s spirits. Even after trimming its outlook for North American Class 8 sales by 10,000 units, Mack still projects a market for 250,000 units this year. The manufacturer recorded a 10% bump in sales during the first quarter alone.

“Most of the pain is in the on-highway – and particularly the longhaul truckload side — where people are almost stopping ordering trucks to get their fleets right-sized,” Slagle said. And while the market for on-highway vehicles is still in “correction” mode, Slagle also stresses that the vocational market is expanding. On-highway truck sales represented 49% of the market in the first two months of 2015, but dropped to 46.9% in 2016. 

The vocational market, Slagle adds, is Mack’s “bread and butter.”

During a briefing to journalists in Austin, Texas, he was bullish about other economic underpinnings as well.

 “This isn’t Brazil. This economy is running along at 2.5%,” he said, referring to strong market fundamentals and the fact that trucks are still consuming parts. “We don’t see too many bumps in the road that will knock this 2.5% off stride.”

Mack itself is emerging from “a lot of restructuring and reorganization” that began in 2008, he said. Since then, $70 million has been invested in its Lehigh Valley plant, and another $38 million in the Hagerstown, Maryland plant that is the birthplace of axles, mDrive transmissions, and engines. “When I started at Mack in 2008, that place was a cave,” he said of the latter location. “Now it’s world-class.”

A five-year project to update the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is also complete.