The voters have spoken: The ‘coolest thing made in NC’ again has a steering wheel
For the second year in a row, the coolest thing made in North Carolina comes on wheels and not in a bottle or a jar.
The Western Star 49X, made by Daimler Trucks in Cleveland, has won the North Carolina Chamber’s second annual “Coolest Thing Made in NC” contest. The 49X beat four other finalists, including the Flucelvax flu vaccine made by Seqirus in Holly Springs and George’s BBQ sauce from Nashville.
Food items were among the best-known among the 68 products initially nominated for the award, which the chamber and Old Dominion Freight Line cooked up as a way to celebrate manufacturing in the state. They included Cheerwine from Salisbury, Bright Leaf hot dogs from Smithfield, dill pickles from Mount Olive and Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Texas Pete hot sauce, both from Winston-Salem.
The winner was chosen by popular vote, through the chamber’s website, with the Western Star 49X receiving 2,725 votes in the final round. Besides the flu vaccine and barbecue sauce, the other two finalists were the HondaJet Elite S from Greensboro and Caterpillar’s Cat 938M wheel loader, made in Clayton.
Altogether, more than 41,700 votes were cast as the field was narrowed down in three rounds of voting.
The Daimler plant in Cleveland, about 45 miles north of Charlotte, is the largest Freightliner truck factory in the country, with about 2,200 employees. The plant, which opened in 1989, makes the Western Star and Freightliner’s Cascadia trucks.
As it happens, the winner of last year’s coolest thing contest was also made by a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North Carolina: The Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley electric school bus by Thomas Built Buses in High Point.
The back-to-back wins by Daimler Trucks subsidiaries are a coincidence, said chamber spokeswoman Jennifer Dart.
“Each company has its own employee base and a different geographic home,” Dart said.
Daimler Trucks North America spokesman Fred Ligouri agreed, but added, “We do put in the effort to promote the contest on social media and internally to encourage voting participation of both our fans and employees.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
