 |
| MERCEDES-BENZ took over the small town of Parys to
launch a set of promises to hundreds of
its best clients.
On hand to witness was (from left) Basia
Abkarian,
Shelbe Pretorius, Sonja Trocinski and Andy Ledwaba |
MERCEDES-BENZ took over the small Free State town of Parys to launch a set of promises to hundreds of
its best clients.
To underline its claims of trust, the company did two unheard-of things. Firstly, they got Scully Levine, whom other pilots refer to as “South Africa’s tribal chief of display flying”, to replicate his party trick of using a moving vehicle as a landing strip for his Piper.
To underline its claims of trust, the company did two unheard-of things. Firstly, they got Scully Levine, whom other pilots refer to as “South Africa’s tribal chief of display flying”, to replicate his party trick of using a moving vehicle as a landing strip for his Piper.
Then Mercedes also trusted members of the media to mingle freely
with its clients.
Levine put his Piper down faultlessly on the Actros, driven at a
steady 64 kilometres per hour by Ferdi de Beer. For their part, the 200 odd
clients, who operate some 1 700 Mercedes-Benz vehicles, faultlessly praised
Merc’s trucks.
The only moan The Witness could hear was about
looks, with no complaints about service, prices or reliability.
This would not surpirse Kobus van Zyl, Mercedes-Benz South Africa
vice president of commercial vehicles, who said the promise of “trucks you could
trust” (TYCT) was not limited to the Actros, but was kept for some 50 years “by
the thousands of the Mercedes-Benz trucks on the road, including Actros, Atego,
Axor and the legendary Unimog”.
“As a market leader, we are known as the innovators and we do not
have the luxury of copying, and this is why we have TYCT.
“We are not launching a tangible product, but a concept. No other
manufacturer has done what we are doing,” said van Zyl.
Van Zyl explained that while selling a car was all about the heart,
selling trucks was all about project finance and that they were not in the
business only to sell trucks conventionally, “but to delight customers”.
He said Mercedes-Benz trucks can also claim to have defined the
logistics terms “uptime” and “dwell-time concepts, now standard and used by
other manufacturers, while Mercedes-Benz was also the first to bring Charterway
and TruckStore to South Africa.
Most of the action happened late at night, when the country’s top
fleet operators climbed the ladder of the new Actros 2658 to hear how
Mercedes-Benz’ latest technology saves fuel. Unfortunately for these captains of
industry, the three-pointed star will not be sold locally until 50 ppm diesel is
available across SA, all part of the company’s pledge to provide “trucks you can
trust”.
