For some reason, people think the Mack Hauler is too small. He’s not as large as he could be but he’s not too small – there is a difference.

As you can see, he is visually appropriate in comparison to McQueen …

This photo is shot with the camera placed directly in front of the two CARS … in real life, a Mack truck is approximately 9′ feet tall (keep in mind, in real life, most Mack trucks do not wear a giant trucker hat 😉  ). In 1:55 scale, a Mack Superliner truck would be about 1.4″ inches high – Mack is 2.5″ tall WITH his hat … I cannot say if Mack has a giant forehead and this wears his hat on top of his head or pull down snug … but minus the entire hat (.5″), Mack’s height is slightly above the scale of a real Mack Superliner but when you scale down, sometimes you need to not be 100% accurate to maintain the right look but bottom line, he’s actually taller than scale requires.

Without the trailer, Mack is 4″ long. A real “stock” Mack Superliner is a few inches shorter than 14 feet long. Mack 4″ length scaled up from 1:55 size equates to a little over 18 feet long so again, Mack is little longer than a real Mack Superliner … but the standard Mack Superliner only has one set of tires and our Mack here is sporting the dual set of tires so an additional 4 feet sounds about right. I don’t think anyone would disagree that an extra set of tires should add about 4 feet.

So, to 1:55 scale, the Mack hauler here is probably a little taller than than a real Mack truck (even discounting the hat) but pretty much dead on in length.

(yes, the photo here is of the Megasize Mack and not the Mack hauler but they are exactly the same length – without the trailer).

While this is a Mack Superliner, it’s the extended cab version and you can see that it matches the “real life” scaled up McQueen – if we could put it side by side, and discounting the extended cab portion of this mack, you can see it pretty much matches the right length and even the height is essentially the same – this McQueen’s roofline is approximately the height of the headlamps side panel on the Mack – as are the diecasts in the first photo in this post …

Now, the trailer section.

Previous releases were way too big for scale purposes … notice the large amount of “air” space between the top row and bottom row of the hauler – if it were a three level car carrier – maybe …

Also a little too wide … though there are clearly wide load trailers out there – usually car carriers are not that wide … but of course, the toy car carrier here is built so hands can reach in to grab, load and remove CARS … and while the $23 dollar price for the regular Mack car carrier did come with 3 CARS, it’s production method was different … Mattel will manufacturer 50,000 of the these at once versus the haulers – which might be as low as 5,000? (Of course, they’re going to make more Mack haulers but they can’t set variable pricing on haulers – $11.99 for Mack but $18.99 for Nitroade?)

(the two trailers are actually lined up and the camera is at ground level – even if it doesn’t look like it, it is – you can see the extra height on the carrier and its length – both too high and too lengthy by strict 1:55 scale).

The semi is in scale to its height and length (well, actually bigger than true “real life” scaled down to 1:55) so in actuality, not “tiny” but larger than “real life.”

The trailer is in height scale to the cab and to a real life counterpart so the only real quibble is its length.

So the final two points are:

Is the trailer as long as it could be? No.

BUT does that make it non-canon?

Clearly, you could argue that trucks in real life – even full size semi cabs as the one below (though not a Mack Superliner) can sometimes be assigned to haul a short trailer …

Though based on the film, it does appear that most of the trailers are longer visually though there is no direct comparison – we are only presuming as Mack is never directed parked next to anyone else with his trailer … you could argue that as a small time operation as Rust-Eze is, they might have to scrimp on a slightly smaller bachelor pad/trailer …

Bottom line is that the semi/cab portion is if anything taller and longer than the real life counterpart though close enough and yes, the trailer portion could be longer but there are varying sizes of trailers that trucks haul so there is no conclusive evidence that directly says Mack’s trailer is X length (either in CARS World or the real world).

And as a diecast, the goal was to create a truck that was in scale that could be sold at retail for around $15 dollars. There are other trucks/cabs/haulers both in the CARS line and in other cars diecast lines that cost more or less but everyone has a different scale of production. The Mack with car carrier is priced a certain way because they do one production run a year – maybe 50,000? Maybe more and then it’s just a matter of what CARS to add to the box set so that pricing parameter is different for haulers that have 30ish versions of facial expression, paint color and decals … (along with different boxes and packaging info) so maybe it’s not as lengthy as it could be but it opens up and holds a CAR and a Pitty … and it looks great … if you’re going to quibble that it could/should contain more air, well sure, but unlike the diecast Dinoco helicopter to its movie counterpart where the scale is off by a couple hundred percent and we have positive proof (based on Mater being inside the passenger area) … here we’re talking about maybe 10% in length of most air (and some plastic) based on a presumption that Mack (and the haulers) in CARS World would drive the exact same standard 80′ foot trailer and never a 70′ foot trailer?

And in return, would you trade a higher cost in production and shipping or possibly the entire line not being approved because the retailers don’t want to sell it for more than $15?

Personally, I think it’s a miracle that the haulers are even an option – what other line would even bother trying to sell a series of haulers? (even obvious examples – in most diecast lines of NASCAR racers, beyond the top 10 racers, how many other haulers are available?)

Again, it’s your money and you don’t have to buy anything you don’t want but they are definitely not tiny and they are definitely in scale … and yes, they are canon … the next step is yours 🙂