COLUMBUS, Ind. — A preliminary reading of North American heavy-duty class 8 net orders climbed to 38,200 units in April – a whopping 158 percent jump from a year ago and the largest monthly order intake since March 2006.

"Every cycle has one or two of those months when the breadth of participation rises and a confluence of events leads to these types of results," said Kenny Vieth of ACT Research, which authored the report. "April happened to be that month this cycle.

"The list of positive drivers leading to the April order spike is long: Healthy freight, increasing trucker profits, pent-up replacement demand, rising used equipment prices, improving credit worthiness, rising prices for new vehicles, and lead times for new equipment that have pushed out to the end of the year."

Additionally, "there is the accelerated depreciation schedule for 2011 to consider."

The challenge, he adds, "is for the industry to translate all of this demand into trucks."