With Brian’s note of the new Mack Anthem semi-tractor hitting the market, I had to look back to an episode of MotorWeek I remembered watching as a little kid. How I remembered this particular episode out of the many I watched as a young, budding gearhead was easy: to my recollection, this was the only time I ever saw the MotorWeek staff test a semi-truck of any type. It wasn’t a fresh introduction…the Mack CH-series had been introduced in 1988, so the timing is a bit late, but it didn’t matter. Here was the Mack I had started seeing at truck stops, with the big, rectangle headlights, the more modern-looking body, and of course, the four letters in the grille and the bulldog that meant this thing was serious business. Hey, it’s not too difficult to impress a seven-year-old.
Something to consider…unless you’re in the trucking business, how often do you hear about a new model coming out? Usually, you don’t. You just see a different-shaped truck roll on by and your brain notes, “That’s new.” Freightliner has recently done this with the “new Cascadia” line of trucks. Haven’t seen one yet? You will. Meanwhile, check out what the testers thought of the Mack below:
That was cool, I always did like Macks. Drove a few when I was a semi mechanic years ago.