Hot on the heels of achieving a new production record of more than 100,000 trucks in one year, Freightliner Corporation has earned top honours in one of the North American automotive industry's most exhaustive customer satisfaction studies.

Freightliner's popular Business Class range of trucks beat all-corners in the J.D. Power & Associates 1998 Medium-Duty Truck Customer Satisfaction Study.

J.D. Power & Associates is a global marketing information services company with offices in the USA, Canada, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom. Specialising in market research, forecasting and customer satisfaction standards, the company's quality and satisfaction measurements are based on actual customer responses from more than one million consumers annually.

For the second time in three years, Freightliner's Business Class range received the J.D. Power award for medium-duty truck customer satisfaction.

Judging criteria in order of priority are vehicle performance, vehicle downtime and vehicle interior. Freightliner's Business Class finished well above the industry average in all areas.

Reflecting these enviable standards, sales of Freightliner Business Class trucks skyrocketed during 1998. In the first 10 months of the year, Business Class sales increased by 37.9 percent over the corresponding period in 1997.

Freightliner Business Class trucks are represented in Australia by the highly versatile FL80 and FLi 12 models which continue to attract an increasing number of truck operators seeking light tare weight, durability and operational efficiency in a cost-effective package.