"We have conducted in-depth studies," he said, "and we can say with certitude you can't find a better truck tire for this price."
Moncar is a relatively new company founded by tire distribution industry veteran Charles Salas, who told Tire Business he has a decades-old business relationship with Arrelano and Avante Group.
Salas said Moncar sees the Starlux product as a premium-quality, value-priced radial truck tire line that will be offered with an extended new tire tread warranty and a casing warranty covering at least two retreads.
The brand will launch with a range of products covering 17.5- to 24.5-inch rim diameters, he said, with wide-base products under development.
Business will be containerload orders initially, but Moncar also is prepared to offer smaller orders eventually using third-party warehousing partners, Salas said, most likely in California, Texas or South Carolina. In addition, Avante/Emotion has warehousing in Monterrey, Mexico, Salas said.
Long March partnered with Pakistan's Service Industries Ltd. three years ago to build a $250 million radial truck/bus tire plant in Pakistan's southern Sindh province.
That plant, rated at 600,000 tires a year in the initial phase, has now come on stream. Long March said the factory's capacity will quadruple to 2.4 million units a year by 2026. The factory is the first in Pakistan dedicated to truck/bus tires.
Sourcing tires from Pakistan enables Moncar to avoid the elevated U.S. import duties imposed on truck/bus tires from China.
Lahore, Pakistan-based Service Industries, a producer primaily of two- and three-wheeler tires and tubes at a plant in Lahore, owns 51% of the venture through its Servis Tyres business unit.
Salas owns another tire import/distribution business, CMC Tires, but that company is inactive for now, he said.
