Mack announces new truck line to be built in Virginia

Mack Trucks is launching a new medium-duty truck line, but the trucks won’t be manufactured in the Lehigh Valley.

Currently, all of the trucks Mack sells in North America are manufactured in its plant in Lower Macungie, but the new Mack MD series will be assembled in a new facility in the Roanoke Valley in Virginia.

The company is investing $13 million to establish a manufacturing facility there. Mack’s investment is being used for equipment, tooling and building enhancements in the 280,000 square feet of the facility.

The new facility is expected to create 250 new jobs in the Roanoke Valley region.

“Mack Trucks is very proud to make this investment and to now offer a full lineup of Class 6 to Class 8 commercial vehicles, serving virtually every segment of the market,” said Martin Weissburg, Mack Trucks president in a release. “With this investment, Mack is well-positioned for future success, and we’re taking orders for the new truck beginning today.”

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced the $13 million investment during an event with state and local officials. He had approved a $700,000 grant from Virginia’s Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund for the project.

Christopher Heffner, Mack Trucks spokesman, said the new trucks are “a totally different product from what our current industrial system is set up to assemble – it’s a completely different platform. We are investing millions of dollars in LVO to ensure we have a first-class plant for our heavy-duty product lines, and inserting this type of assembly wasn’t a fit for our plans for that [Lower Macungie] facility.”

He noted that the Roanoke Valley facility was also closer to Mack’s headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The new truck line is being designed to meet the needs of trucking applications requiring dry van/refrigerated, stake/flatbed, dump and tank truck vocations.

The MD6 model does not require a Commercial Driver’s License to operate for non-hazardous payloads.

Earlier this year, Mack announced it would be laying off 305 people at its Lehigh Valley operations in Lower Macungie Township because of lower demand for the trucks manufactured there.

This is an entirely new line.

Production of the Mack MD series trucks is expected to begin in July.