TORONTO, Ont. – Organizers of a two-day Allison transmission demonstration in Woodstock, Ont. June 25 and 26 are calling the event a success.

“We got a lot of positive feedback,” said Steve Matson, Allison products manager for Harper Detroit-Diesel-Allison, a parts and service centre in Toronto.

“We even had a couple of customers who said they were going to change the specs on trucks they already ordered.”

The demonstration put 80 potential customers from the construction and ready-mix industry in the passenger seat of a dump truck with an Allison automatic transmission. The truck was then driven up a hill with a 12 per cent grade. That’s a one-foot rise in a hundred feet, explained Dale Gillis, vice-president for new products sales for Harper Detroit-Diesel-Allison.

“The purpose of the demo was to show how a Class A four axle dump truck with a 99 lb. gross could go up this hill and actually stop on it and then move on. You just can’t do that with a manual transmission.”

The demo was the second in two years, said Gillis.

“Last year we had invited 40 customers in over two days, but this year we had two trucks, so we doubled the number.”

Gillis said that one customer who attended last year’s event has since purchased two trucks with Allison automatic transmissions.