Diecast Masters 1:50 Western Star 4900 w/McNeilus Bridgemaster Concrete Mixer

Western Star Trucks Sales, Inc., commonly designated Western Star, is an American truck manufacturer headquartered in Portland, Oregon, United States, and a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North America, in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of the German Daimler AG.

In 1967 White Motor Company started the Western Star division as White Western Star with a new plant at Kelowna, British Columbia, sharing headquarters with White in Cleveland, Ohio. It was not included in the 1980 sale of White to Volvo, instead being sold to Bow Valley Resources and Nova Corporation, each owning 50%.

In 1991, Western Star Trucks was purchased by the owners of the Western Star Australian subsidiary, Terry Peabody and Bob Shand. In 1996, ERF was purchased. It was sold in 2000 to MAN.

In 2000, Western Star was purchased by DaimlerChrysler, becoming part of the Freightliner Trucks division.

In 2002, Western Star production was moved to a plant in Portland, Oregon. 4700, 4800, 4900 and 6900 model trucks are still manufactured in the Portland Truck Plant. In May 2015, the Daimler Trucks North America plant in Cleveland, North Carolina, began to build 4700 and 4900 models, as well as assemble all new semi tractor 5700XE models

Multiple Western Star trucks have been featured in films, including: A Western Star 5700 Phantom Custom is used as the new disguise for Optimus Prime in Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight as well as a Western Star 4900SF tow truck is used as the Decepticon Onslaught in Transformers: The Last Knight. A Western Star 4800 is used as the Happy Toyz (Green Goblin) truck in Maximum Overdrive. A Western Star 4964 is used as the Westway Refrigerated truck in Trucks. A 1989 Western Star 4964 was used as the antagonist vehicle in the 2015 Canadian horror film Wrecker, which is largely a remake of the film Duel.

Special concrete transport trucks (in-transit mixers) are made to mix concrete and transport it to the construction site. They can be charged with dry materials and water, with the mixing occurring during transport. They can also be loaded from a "central mix" plant; with this process the material has already been mixed prior to loading. The concrete mixing transport truck maintains the material's liquid state through agitation, or turning of the drum, until delivery. The interior of the drum on a concrete mixing truck is fitted with a spiral blade. In one rotational direction, the concrete is pushed deeper into the drum. This is the direction the drum is rotated while the concrete is being transported to the building site. This is known as "charging" the mixer. When the drum rotates in the other direction, the Archimedes' screw-type arrangement "discharges", or forces the concrete out of the drum. From there it may go onto chutes to guide the viscous concrete directly to the job site. If the truck cannot get close enough to the site to use the chutes, the concrete may be discharged into a concrete pump, connected to a flexible hose, or onto a conveyor belt which can be extended some distance (typically ten or more metres). A pump provides the means to move the material to precise locations, multi-floor buildings, and other distance-prohibitive locations. Buckets suspended from cranes are also used to place the concrete. The drum is traditionally made of steel but on some newer trucks, fibreglass has been used as a weight reduction measure.