Pinnacle to take Grammer lessons

Commercial vehicle seat specialist Grammer AG is close to concluding a joint venture with Pithampur-based Pinnacle Industries, its licensee of 1½ years for a range of air-suspended seats for MAN’s CLA trucks.

Ten years after its pioneering joint venture with Harita Seating was dissolved, the global leader in seats for off-road vehicles, and one of the top producers of truck, bus, and train seats, is planning a second go at the market.

Harita Grammer pioneered purpose-designed driver’s seats in the Indian truck market when it was founded in 1988, following up with a range of high-end passenger seats for coaches and driver’s seats for tractors.

Harita Seating’s domestic market leadership in each of these segments was built on Grammer seat technologies. Pinnacle is a direct competitor in high-end coach seating, using technology from Magna Seating subsidiary Vogelsitze.

With Grammer, it is evidently hoping to emulate Harita’s success in the market for driver’s seats, an area of competence in which the German company reigns supreme in Europe and much of the West.

For Grammer, which has been looking at re-entering India for a couple of years now, the primary attraction is the tractor market, the world’s largest by unit sales. The growing market for metro trains is also definitely of interest. But it is the truck and bus market where the biggest prospective volumes lie. From 2006 till the licence agreement with Pinnacle, Grammer sold seats to MAN Force Trucks directly out of Germany.

The company has now decided to bring in its complete range of technologies, including climate-controlled seats with integrated seatbelts, and “active” seats with integrated controls for off-highway machines.

Its MSG 115 suspended seat is standard in all versions of Mercedes-Benz’s new Actros, and other models account for a significant majority of that OEM’s – and its German rival MAN’s – truck seat purchasing in Europe.

Grammer also supplies the majority of seats for VW trucks produced by MAN Latin America in Brazil.

ELIOT LOBO