Mack Group history

In the years following the war, the Bulldog nickname stuck with the company, and in 1922 Mack adopted it as its official corporate symbol.

The Allentown plant, built in 1926, was so old that trucks were still spray-painted by hand.

Perhaps its most significant achievement was the introduction of its own diesel engine in the summer of 1938.

The AC model was manufactured continuously through 1939 -- a remarkable 24 years, and 40,299 were built.

In 1940 Mack sales hit $44 million on domestic deliveries of 7,754 units, with a net profit of $1.8 million.

In one of their most impressive moves, two Mack trucks hauled the body of a DC-3 transport aircraft from Houston to Dallas in May 1943.

1952: The company introduces its best-selling "B" series.

Another major innovation was the END 673 "Thermodyne" diesel engine, which was introduced in 1953 and featured direct fuel injection, allowing for greater power (170 horsepower) and reliability.

In part because of this initiative, gross sales of Mack trucks soared to a quarter of a billion dollars in 1956, with a net profit of more than $12 million.

In 1959, net profits again reached a new high of $15.8 million.

In 1965, after decades of continued growth, Mack announced that its corporate headquarters would move to Allentown in order to be closer to the main assembly plant.

By the time the "B" series was discontinued in 1966 approximately 127,000 models had been sold.

These reforms helped Mack improve its financial situation by 1967.

Construction of a new Mack World Headquarters building began, and on April 28, 1970, it officially opened.

It did introduce an air-to-air intercooled diesel engine in 1973, the ENDT 676 "Maxidyne," which featured 285 horsepower, 1,080 pound/feet of torque.

In 1979 the company entered into an agreement with French manufacturer Renault.

Although the company briefly returned to profitability in 1984, the losses were indicative of a general downturn that would continue to affect the industry for years to come.

But a write-off on the antiquated Allentown plant led to $58 million in losses during 1985.

In January 1986, after posting a net loss of nearly $65 million for the third quarter of the previous year, Mack announced that it would close its Allentown plant.

Four years later, in 1990, Mack became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Renault.

In 1993, when Mack lost $64 million on revenues of $1.7 billion, the United States heavy-duty truck industry recorded its greatest sales volume in the previous 15 years, engendering sizable profit totals for many of the industry's largest players.

These changes eventually helped the company returned to profitability in 1994.

The market for Class 8 trucks was in a slump in 1995, declining more than 15 percent, but Mack held its own and gained some ground.

In October 1996, responsibility for these initiatives fell squarely on the shoulders of the company's new president and chief executive, Michel Gigou, who had been with Renault for 24 years.

By the end of 1998, Mack recorded six straight years of market growth – becoming the only United States heavy-duty truck manufacturer to do so at the time.

In 2000, as Mack celebrated its 100th anniversary, Swedish manufacturer AB Volvo acquired the company – a move that led to many major changes in the Lehigh Valley.

By September 2001, Volvo announced that it would close the Winnsboro plant altogether, and implement restructuring measures to maximize efficiencies between its Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks North America subsidiaries.

Still, Mack's truck deliveries remained weak through the end of 2003, with the company reporting a 23 percent decline at the end of October over the same period for the previous year.

In 2009, Mack’s corporate headquarters, along with all the operations that had been performed in the Engineering Development and Test Center facility, moved to Volvo’s campus in Greensboro, North Carolina.