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But in 1900, after eight years of testing, the brothers finally produced a vehicle that satisfied them. The Macks had exacting standards, and both an electric car and a steam-powered wagon were dumped into the East River for having too many mechanical flaws. The firm was ruined by the financial panics of the 1890s, and the two brothers were forced to enter the business of maintaining and repairing engines, rather than manufacturing them.ĭuring this time they began to experiment with new types of self-propelled vehicles. In 1893 Jack, with his brother Augustus, purchased a small carriage- and wagon-building firm in Brooklyn, New York. The youngest of five brothers, 14-year-old Jack Mack ran away from his Pennsylvania home in 1878 to join the Teamsters and work as a mechanic.
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Mack, a quality-conscious, pioneering truck manufacturer, had a history of cash flow problems and near collapses. The square-shouldered grimly determined bulldog was an appropriate symbol. In 1932 Mack began putting the bulldog emblem on the front of all trucks and in the 1960s, to raise company morale, Mack produced bulldog pins, carpets, flags, T-shirts, and other items.
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Legend has it that a British officer, trying to free an artillery piece that was mired in mud, coined the name "bulldog" when he called out to a Mack driver, "Bring that bulldog over here." Management liked the term. It was by hauling heavy artillery pieces through the mud of World War I battlefields that Mack trucks first earned their famous nickname. As of 2002, Mack trucks were sold and serviced in more than 45 countries worldwide. In addition to its widely recognized line of heavy-duty trucks, Mack produces a line of medium-duty diesel trucks throughout North America. In 2000 Mack became a wholly owned subsidiary of AB Volvo, a publicly held company headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with annual sales of approximately $20 billion. is one of North America's largest producers of heavy-duty trucks and major product components.
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