A heavyweight history

A TWO-VOLUME COLLECTOR’S EDITION BOOK documenting the history of Kiwi-built Mack trucks will be launched at the marque’s 50th Anniversary celebrations being held at Manfeild over Labour weekend.

Mack. The Life is the illustrated history of the first 1000 Macks built and operated in New Zealand. It also includes a section detailing the trucks built at the MTD facility in Palmerston North and then exported.

Authors Ed Mansell, Grant Gadsby and Paul Livsey have spent three years researching and producing the book.

“The book has been inspired by the Mack 1000 celebration in 1987, where the first 1000 Macks were displayed and celebrated in pictures when they went into service,” says Ed.

“All three of us were at that weekend and over the years have taken and collected thousands of pictures of these Macks working from the Cape Reinga to Bluff. Our vision was to capture their life story into a book.

Mansell travelled the country for his job and took many photos of trucks in front line work and Grant Gadsby drove many Macks and collated the ownership details as well as photos.

Paul Livsey loved Macks from a young age, went for many rides and continued to track them and photograph them, often well off the beaten track.

“Although the inspiration was 35 years ago, it was only just over three years ago we decided to combine our knowledge to publish a book and preserve our combined knowledge,” Ed says.

The book is the life story – in pictures – of the Macks “born” in Palmerston North.

“They were loved by the lucky few that got to operate them and admired by the world they passed by,” says Ed.

“Many worked harder than was envisioned and ended up being the parts for others to keep going. Some had life cut short by accidents while others are still working.

“Some have been restored and look like the day they went on the road by their original owners or people who have connected with Mack in New Zealand as children of the era or for many other reasons.”

After countless hours laying out the book, finding the best photos, repairing old photos, making sure the owner details are correct, the result over 1000 pages, containing about 10,000 photos and weighing 7.5kg.

The two volumes have a hard shell cover and the first 1000 are numbered with a second print run now confirmed.

Copies are still available by contacting paul@trgroup.co.nz

T&D