The North American Truck Manufacturing Industry

Although the truck industry has usually been included in studies on the motor vehicle industry it has enough special features to study it separately. The industry initially concentrated in the Northeastern region of the United States. It was prevented from expanding by the limitations of the truck type of the time. As the truck type improved the industry was freed from locating only in the major cities. With the automobile and the gasoline engine industry in the Midwest, the truck industry soon shifted there. With greater acceptance of the truck and ease of entry into the industry, truck companies dispersed to all areas of North America. This lasted until the large company became dominant and the small firms were forced out of the industry, resulting in a contradiction of the industry’s spatial pattern. More recent changes have been the expansion of Western firms to the East, almost duplicating the earlier expansions of the Eastern companies