DENTON, Texas – Peterbilt is celebrating the 40^th anniversary of its Denton, Texas truck plant.

The facility, opened in August 1980, is Peterbilt’s main manufacturing facility. It began operations as a 435,000 sq.-ft. facility with 81 employees. Today, it has grown from 80 acres to 238, with more than 700,000 sq.-ft. of space employing more tan 2,500 people.

“During the past 40 years Peterbilt has built over 629,000 trucks in the Denton plant and we’re constantly investing and implementing new technologies and processes to improve our quality and efficiency for the future,” said Leon Handt, Peterbilt assistant general manager of operations. “The past five years alone have seen investments in automated overhead parts storage and retrieval, automated guided vehicle assembly lines, additional emissions reduction equipment, a brand new test building as well as numerous enhancements throughout the plant.”

The company has also built a Peterbilt Experience at the plant, which customers can visit to see a glimpse of the truck maker’s past, present and future.

“In a regular year we have thousands of people touring the Peterbilt Denton Plant. The ability to see our amazing employees utilizing the advanced tools and technology to build each Peterbilt truck to a customer’s exact specifications really shows off the quality of our product. It is one of the strongest selling tools we have,” said Robert Woodall, Peterbilt assistant general manager of sales and marketing.