Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

I promised Mack a story about Macks, and here it is.

Immediately after WWII there was an enormous lack of civilian trucks, and an enormous surplus of military trucks. A trucking company in the Netherlands called Floor recognised this, and started converting military Mack trucks for civilian use. They were very successful, so in 1955 they also started to assemble new Macks. At the time there was no European manufacturer that offered real heavy trucks, and since Floor’s business was also transporting bricks, they really could use those heavy US Macks. Those red Mack trucks transporting bricks were a very familiar sight at the time.









All went well, until around 1965 Mack decided they wanted to assemble Mack trucks in Europe themselves, and bought a small French truck manufacturer. That left Floor without their Mack assembly business. Now Floor already had been contemplating building their own very heavy trucks, and so the Floor Truck Fabriek or Floor Truck Factory was born. They build their own frames and cabs, and used big Detroit two-stroke diesels, Allison transmissions, and Rockwell axles. Later they used standard British cabs.





The Dutch army used FTF trucks for their tank trailers, to replace the British Thornycroft Mighty Antar. The first picture shows an older FTF tractor with a British Centurion tank.







In 1995 FTF stopped producing their own trucks, and now they are producing trailers. In total, they assembled 1600 Mack trucks, and build 700 FTF trucks.

Some 35 years ago someone organized the first Mack day in the Netherlands. Owners of surviving Macks gathered to show their trucks. These days it is the annual Truckstar Mack and Special Transport Day, where they also show modern US trucks, and old-timer trucks. (Truckstar is a magazine)

The following videoclip shows the trucks leaving the exhibition. You will see several old Mack trucks, a surprising number of FTF trucks,and also quite a number of other US trucks. However you will also notice that hardly any of those US trucks is pulling anything. That is because no one is using them for real, these are (and this may hurt a bit) big boy’s toys of wealthy truck owners.





Anyway, I hope Mack likes this contribution about Macks.

 

Here several state owned haulage companies used mack trucks mostly f700 but also some r600 , one company had more than 100 of them, they used them everywhere all europe ussr, middle east, north africa, far east.

Old saying says one mack can break three drivers, i guess it was far more uncomfortable than our trucks from that time.

For price of 2 man they could buy 3 macks.

 

The equivalence is like this; The MBE4000 was a bad engine. Used on your side of the pond. The MaxFarce was a bad engine, used on our side of the pond. That's the connection. I know they are not related to each other.

 

Actually mbe4000 was not used, however it was cousin of it, they are man based, dont have much in common with maxxforce. It was not popular here our market wants premium things, they used it in turkey, i know for maybe 20 trucks with this engine here

 

I think this is probably due to a language difference. Whether or not you used the MBE4000 there, it originated there. They were used in Freightliners here, but they weren't an American engine based on a European design.

The MaxxFarce was designed, produced and used here. Whether it was based on a different European design is irrelevant.

They both were bad engines. One on this side of the pond, the other on your side of the pond.

 

mbe4000 is from turkey and brazil, never made here,mb br is very different from here, i have no abbility to get their models look at specs or anything. tr is similar to us.
Maxforce is based on man engines

 

My one and only Mack cabover.......

 

Google KW 8 bag . Then add air ride cab. Then air ride seat. Again we had 4 point air ride cabs back in the 70's . The sharing of tech is nonstop. But if it lets you feel better , fine. We had disk brakes 30 years ago. Who owns DAF again??? So who owns their magic tech?

 

Let not forget the Paccar MX ! The three biggest mistakes to ever hit the market here in 40 years are Eur designed . If the other advances are a million times better then these examples , please keep it there! Maybe if they are 10 million times better?