Penske Australia’s on highway truck sales might be meagre at this point in time with its portfolio of brands including MAN, Western Star, Detroit Diesel and Dennis Eagle, but the organisation in this country is a bit like an iceberg, the most visible part is only a fraction of the actual size of the organisation.
Penske Australia last year had a record revenue of $1.9 billion from a range of enterprise spread far and wide from its best known road transport arm, taking in a massive involvement in defence, a huge and growing involvement in power generation for data centres, mining and back up systems and in Australia’s massive mining industry.
The bits of the Penske ‘Iceberg’ that aren’t as visible are massive enterprises and recently grew to include the largest Porsche Cars dealership in Australia , Porsche Cars of Melbourne, which on its own has added around $500 million in annual turnover for 
Penske Australia.
Of course Penske corporation, still headed up by the revered and venerated octogenarian businessman, Roger Penske, is a massive global operation with interests in an array of operations. It is one of the largest automotive retail companies in North America and Europe, one of the largest truck rental operations in the USA with something like 450,000 vehicles on its books, a truck leasing business that is reputed to be the biggest in the world and that is all before you get to Penske’s massive and highly successful motor sport operations. These include a highly successful NASCAR team, the Porsche World Endurance racing operation, a highly successful Indycar race team, not to mention owning the venerated Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the actual sport organisation that is IndyCar racing. It also owns Ilmore Engineering that is a global race engine manufacturer a former engine supplier to F1 and currently a major Indy car engine supplier.
All of that makes you tired just thinking about it.
As Penske Australia’s managing director Hamish Christie-Johnston used a chair as an analogy to illustrate the stability anf strength of Penske in Australia and globally.
“Each leg represents a different sector of our operations in Australia, with one leg representing on highway truck business, another our defence operations, the third our power generation business and the fourth our mining and off road operations,” said Christie-Johnston.
“All of those businesses support our organisation here and while our on highway truck sales volume and market share may not be as high as we like we have the stability of the other operations that mean we will not only be able to withstand the pressures of business but also ensure we will be around for a long time and wont just blow away ion the breeze,” he added.
Penske Australia sold around 623 on highway trucks in Australia last year, retailing 350 MANs, 168 Western Stars and 105 Denis Eagles. By comparison Daimler as a group sold 4932 trucks across its Mercedes , Freightliner and Fuso brands, while Paccar sold a shade under 4000 Kenworths and DAFs. It is fair to say Penske Australia executives including Hamish Christie-Johnston and his right hand man and executive in charge of on road truck operations, Craig Lee have much higher ambitions for the organisations 
truck brands.
Supply has been one of the issues for them with Western Star as it has been for the factory owned Daimer operation with Freightliner. It is hard to get the sort of attention you need when Dainler sells close to 200,000 trucks in the North American market each year 
and its two brands in Australia account for barely 293 truck in total across Western Star and Freightliner. That would struggle to be a blip on DTNA’s sales radar.
Having said that the resolve of the Penske team seems to be unchecked and the enthusiasm and passion for the products it sells here is as buoyant as ever. You just get the feeling that if they were given an even break when it comes to supply and probably pricing they would be selling Western Stars, in particular, like it’s going out of style.
The media day was partly about driving the latest iterations of the top end MAN and Western Star product, mainly n highway, with some sampling of MAN’s highly valued off road trucks which have found a ready market in remote mining and farming operations around the country. However it was mostly about reinforcing the message that Penske is a major industrial player in this country across those previously mentioned four pillars, on highway, power generation, defence and mining
The biggest headline in the on highway truck sector at the media day was the newly revised 540hp version of the MAN TGX 540 with its re rated 13 litre engine, there were other versions iof rhe TGX, while on the Western Star side we had the chance to drive the 48X and 49X a couple of years after these new models were first launched diown under.
As always both the MANs and the Stars acquitted themselves extremely well on both the highway loop and gradient track at Anglesea while on an off road track we had the chance to ride aboard both the MAN 4×4 TGM 18.320 and the 8×8 TGS42.480 on a demanding rough terrain circuit.
No one doubts the credentials of either the MAN or Western Star portfolios however everyone scratches their heads a little trying to figure why both brands don’t score more highly on the monthly TIC T-Mark truck sales figure scoreboard. It is not for want of trying.
Part of the reason particularly for the meagre Western Star sales is down to pricing and supply and to a lesser extent the pricing on MAN, but both brands mount a compelling argument as producers of trucks well suited to Australia’s demanding conditions, which as we know call for higher loads, longer distances, higher temperatures and higher average speeds than anywhere else on the trucking planet.
It’s clear that with the critical mass Penske carries in this country across all its activities that they’re not going to turn their back on the on highway truck business, which is a very real and positive display for the company on our highways across the country.
For us we are really looking forward to a longer drive in the MAN TGX 540 sometime soon and we look forward to reporting our experience on Truck and Bus News.
