Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
Fourteen years after Swedish AB Volvo bought out nearly bankrupt White Motor Co. and breathed life into a Dublin truck-making plant, the name "Volvo" has completed its takeover of the trucks manufactured at Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corp.
Last month the first trucks with "Volvo" nameplates attached to their grilles rolled off the line. Retired is the "WhiteGMC" identification that once heralded the approach of the 10-wheeled behemoths. There is no name change for the company itself.
A spokesman for the company said that after 14 years, Volvo's recognition as a truck maker has grown to the point where the name can stand alone.
It stands for a set of values and a way of doing business, said Keith Boyle, who works out of the company's Greensboro, N.C., corporate headquarters.
In 1981, AB Volvo took over Cleveland-based White Motor Co., which had built the Dublin plant eight years earlier but had fallen victim to an industry downturn in the recession years of Jimmy Carter's presidency.
Then, "Volvo as a name had zero visibility in the U.S." as a truck maker, Boyle said.
The company called itself Volvo White Truck Corp.
And in the early days of Volvo's involvement, virtually none of the trucks' components were manufactured by the company. That has changed now, with Volvo using its own axles, transmissions and engines to build many of its trucks.
In the 1980s, President Reagan helped deregulate the trucking industry and Volvo White grew. In 1987, General Motors bought a 17 percent interest in the company, and the following year it became the Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corp. it is today.
Last year the company announced that it would invest $200 million and, with $30 million worth of assistance from the state and local governments, would expand its Dublin plant. That expansion is more than halfway finished. The plant manufactures more than 80 trucks a day.
Truckers across the country call the rigs they drive by any number of names, from "Volvo-White," to "WhiteGMC," to just "GMC," Boyle said. "It was just a mishmash of incorrect names."
"This is the time to publicly affirm that we are fully a Volvo company," Boyle said.
The name change isn't something to take lightly, nor is it without substance, Boyle contends. While not quoting a figure, he said the company will spend several million dollars to adapt, making changes in everything from stationery, to erecting a new sign at the plant, to placing the new name on at least a dozen spots on the trucks.
"There are a zillion things," he said, including several upgrades on the 1996 models, such as anti-lock braking and daytime running lights. "We've made more than cosmetic changes."
by CNB