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Amerikaanse torpedo truck

American trucks

One of our employees has been on a trip to America. He has shot some beautiful pictures of the typical American trucks. We’re happy to share these with you and have listed the most famous American truck brands for you.

Famous truck brands in America

In America, other truck brands besides Volvo are in demand by drivers. Famous truck brands in America are:

Peterbilt

Peterbilt celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2019. Its founder was T.A. Peterman. Peterman was an entrepreneur in the timber industry. However, he was struggling with problems surrounding the transportation of his wood. So he decided to start building trucks. In the beginning only for his own trade, later from 1939 also for sales. The name Peterbilt was brought to life when PACCAR took over the company ‘T.A. Peterman’.

Volvo

The first Volvo truck was built in Sweden in 1928. It was not until 1959 that Volvo Trucks were introduced in America. Nevertheless, the brand quickly conquered all of the country; by 1970, it was impossible to imagine America without Volvo.

Kenworth

Kenworth trucks were invented by a collaboration between H.W. Kent and E.K. Worthington. During the depression in America in 1930-1932, Kenworth specialized in the production of fire engines. A year later in 1933, they were the first manufacturer of diesel engines as standard equipment in trucks. Kenworth, like Peterbilt, is part of PACCAR.

Freightliner

Freightliner is part of Germany’s Daimler (also owner of Mercedes-Benz). Its founder was Leland James. He was the director of the transportation company ‘Consolidated Freightways’. James was the inventor of aluminum parts in trucks. In addition, his trucks had the cab above the engine. In 1940 he came up with the name Freightways Manufacturing Company, which he changed to Freightliner Corporation in 1942.

Mack

The popular Mack truck is characterized by the English bulldog on the front of the truck’s nose. Mack was founded in 1900 by brothers Jack and Augustus (Gus) Mack, only in 1922 the bulldog was added to the logo. Especially during the First and Second World Wars, Mack supplied many trucks, but also artillery tractors, salvage vehicles and tank transporters.

Western Star

Western Star, compared to other American trucks, started making trucks a little later, not until 1967. The company started with heavy load tractors. Not soon thereafter, trucks were built for somewhat lighter loads. What’s special is that Western Star makes all of its trucks one at a time by hand, tailored to the needs of the customer.

American trucks

Following are the photos taken by our colleague. Those are beautiful trucks, aren’t they? We thought so too! Hard to get in the Netherlands? Not at all! On TrucksNL you can find some attractive American torpedo tractor units.

Sources (some in Dutch):

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