Rush Enterprises, Inc. (RUSHA) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Rush Enterprises Reports First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Rusty Rush, Chairman, CEO and President. Please go ahead.

Well, good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings release call. With me on the call this morning are Steve Keller, Chief Financial Officer; Jody Pollard, Chief Operating Officer; Jay Hazelwood, Vice President and Controller; and Michael Goldstone, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Before I get started, Steve will say a few words regarding forward-looking statements.

Certain statements we will make today are considered forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Because these statements include risks and uncertainties, our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Thank you, Steve, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. As we reported yesterday, we generated revenues of $1.68 billion in the first quarter with net income of $61.5 million or $0.77 per diluted share. We also declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.19 per share, which reflects our continued focus on returning value to shareholders. Now stepping back for a minute, the first quarter was still a tough environment for the commercial vehicle market. Industry-wide retail sales for new trucks remained at historically low levels, and we're still working through the effects of the freight recession, excess capacity and general economic uncertainty. That said, we do believe this quarter represents the trough of the cycle. And more importantly, we're starting to see some early signs that things are moving in the right direction. Freight rates improved a bit, miles driven began to pick up and customer sentiment started to feel a little more optimistic. As a result, we saw increased quoting activity and order intake as the quarter progressed, especially from our large fleet customers. That hasn't translated into sustained strength in truck sales yet, but it's a good leading indicator and gives us confidence that demand is starting to come back. One thing that stood out again this quarter is the strength of our business model. Even with soft truck sales, our aftermarket leasing and rental businesses, along with disciplined expense management, helped us stay very profitable and perform well overall. We also stayed focused on growing the business. During the quarter, we signed an agreement to acquire Peterbilt dealerships in Southern Louisiana and Mississippi. We expect to close that deal and begin operating those locations at Rush Truck Centers in June. So even in a down cycle, we continue to invest in the business, expanding into new markets and positioning ourselves for long-term growth. Our aftermarket business continues to be a key strength for us. It made up roughly 66% of our gross profit in the quarter and generated $627 million in revenue, up slightly year-over-year. Demand was still soft in the sub segments, especially for some of our over-the-road customers. But overall, we were able to deliver growth, which speaks to the strength of our relationships and our execution. We also started to see some positive indicators here, more freight activities and more miles being driven, which should translate into stronger parts and service demand as customers began catching up on deferred maintenance. Our aftermarket strategic initiatives are also making a difference. Our inspection processes and parts delivery optimization have gained traction across our network and are delivering incremental revenue, increasing uptime for our customers and delivering a better experience overall. Looking ahead, we expect the aftermarket to gradually improve as we move through the year and continue to be a key driver for our performance. Turning to truck sales. The market was still very tough in the first quarter with Class 8 industry sales at their lowest level since COVID. But even in that environment, we performed well. We sold 2,964 Class 8 trucks in the U.S. and captured a 7.2% market share. That really comes down to execution, having the right inventory and the diversity of our customer base. As I mentioned earlier, we saw solid order activity and increased engagement from customers during the quarter. We think that's being driven by improving freight conditions and customers beginning to plan for 2027 engines emissions regulations. Class 4 through 7 truck sales saw the worst demand since 2015, but our results were more about timing than demand. Some large fleet customers pushed deliveries into later in the year. So we expect that to benefit us in the coming quarter. Used truck demand improved as we moved through the quarter, and we're seeing better conditions tied to improving spot rates and tighter capacity. So overall, while the first quarter was slow, we expect sales to improve gradually in the second quarter and then pick up in the second -- pick up more in the second half of the year. Renewal leasing continue to be strong and growing part of our business. Revenue was $92 million in the quarter, up a little over 2% year-over-year. Leasing demand remains strong as customers look to replace aging equipment and get ahead of cost increases tied to the upcoming emissions regulations. Rental is below where we'd like it to be, driven by current market conditions, but it did improve as the quarter progressed, and we expect utilization to continue trending up through the year. Overall, Rush Truck Leasing continues to generate consistent reoccurring revenue and remains an important contributor to our performance. So to wrap it up, the first quarter reflected the ongoing pressure from the freight recession and weak truck demand, but we delivered solid earnings and profitability. That speaks to the strength and balance of our business. We believe we're at the bottom of the cycle, and we're encouraged by early signs we are seeing, whether that's freight, customer activity or order trends. As conditions continue to improve, we believe we're well positioned to capture that demand and grow the business. Before I close, I want to thank our employees across the company. Their focus, discipline and commitment to our customers continue to drive our performance, especially in a very challenging environment like this. With that, I'll take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question for the day will be coming from the line of Avi Jaroslawicz of UBS.

So glad to see that the year is still on track for improvement sequentially. But just thinking about the second half here, it sounds like there's still a decent amount of uncertainty around the prebuy for this year on just a number of fronts, whether the OEMs are going to have new engines ready and how the rules are going to be enforced and the demand dynamics around that. Can you just give us a rundown on how those different moving parts are shaping your expectations?

Well, that's a good statement there, Avi. It's kind of crazy. We're at April 30 tomorrow. We've got 8 months left in the year, and we still don't have definitive regulations printed, okay? Now when I'm talking about emissions regulations, they have sent out signals and told people the EPA has of what they're going to do, right? They're going to keep supposedly at 0.35, but they have not clarified about credits, et cetera, if there's going to be NCPs, things like that. We're probably still 60 days away from it. But regardless of that, we do know that there are going to be new emissions regulations. So I think that's spurred customers to go ahead. Order activity, as you can see, starting in December has been up dramatically from where it was the prior 7 or 8 months from an order intake. So even with that uncertainty, there is certainty of something going down. Exactly what it is, we're not exactly sure because it hasn't been posted by the EPA yet. So we'll still have to follow that and see. We hope to know within the next 45 to 60 days. But if I've been -- if I told you that 45 days ago and held my breath, I wouldn't be in very good shape because I told you I'd know by now. So it keeps the can kicked down the road a little bit. So I think the most important thing is that customers' business is people are more optimistic. Finally, because of the contraction on the supply side, right, of taking trucks out, whether it was through non-domicile because building less trucks in the back half of last year, building less trucks in the first quarter of this year. We slowed the intake down. So the supply side squeezed down. Customers are more optimistic about rates. Coming in, if you'd asked me 3 or 4 months ago, everybody said, I know this is one of your question, but you know me, I'm going to ramble on, that we're going to be flat to low singles and it was mid-singles. Now people are looking at maybe high single-digit increases. So people are optimistic. At the same time, to your point, about emissions, not knowing clearly what it's going to be, what the stated, but we do know it's going to be worse, whether there would be NCPs and the cost would go up dramatically or the total enforcement of what's out there for EPA January '27. So that's about the best thing I can tell you is there's still uncertainty, but you know something is coming down the tracks, right? You just don't know exactly what.

Got it. I appreciate that, Rusty. And just to follow on a point there. So thinking about the improving conditions within the freight market, as you just noted, really more driven by supply reductions, capacity reductions, that doesn't necessarily help the parts and service side as much as improving freight activity. So what are you seeing there? And when do you think we might see parts and service volumes inflect positively?

Yes. It's funny. People -- theoretically, people believe that when truck sales go down, okay, that you're going to get more parts and service. Well, that's not really actually the case because people are cutting back their budgets and things. And that's what we've seen, right? That's why we've been fairly flat over the last couple of 3 quarters, right? Even in spite of inflation we've had, we've remained flat. And that's because people have tightened their belts. The best thing I can see is for their business to get better, right? Historically, when customers feel better about looking forward and more optimistic, there will be no postponing of any maintenance or any repairs because it's just like anything. When your income level goes down, you learn how to take your outcome, what you spend down to. It's no different than you as a person managing your household. So that's what customers have done. The most encouraging thing for me is going to be seeing -- hopefully seeing second and third quarter releases and list and hearing about contract rates going up. So that optimism that we see out there comes to fruition is the best way I can describe it. We expect -- I would tell you this, we've been growing slightly. I'm not happy with it, but we have gradually gone January, February was better than January. March was better than February. And April, it looks like it's going to be a little bit better than March. So I think as conditions improve, not just truck sales, but obviously, parts and service, too, will improve with that. And that's -- it's just a matter of because tonnage has gone up. Tonnage was up for the first time, I think, in 2 or 3 years in February, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not sure where it was in March. But it is getting a little bit better, not just from the supply side, but I think on the other side of the house. Now people are going to -- we've got a lot of outliers out there. I don't have to tell you what's going on overseas and fuel and all this other stuff. But the general macro, I think, environment for continued improvement at the customer level is it's there without any interruptions from geopolitics or something like that. But -- so I mean, I just do believe that things are going to be better. I don't want people to get -- I believe we're going to be up in some areas, it's going to build through the year. And because we're on -- and I believe it's not going to go away in '27. My personal belief is I see a nice -- a pretty good 4-month run anyway. I'm not going to try to forecast outside of a year, but I feel pretty good about where it is. But it's going to be a gradual -- I just believe it's going to continue to get better based upon conversations I have with many customers and people around the industry.

And our next question is going to be coming from the line of Brady Lierz of Stephens.

You mentioned that you expect overall commercial vehicle sales to improve gradually. Could you just help us break that out between your heavy-duty and your medium, light duty just because of the weakness in the medium duty in the first quarter, like should we see a more immediate recovery in that versus Class 8? Just any clarity around kind of breaking out those 2 trends would be helpful.

Yes. Sequentially, yes, because it was so off in Q1, right? Sometimes you get numerator denominator, right? So from a percentage basis, yes, you're going to see medium improve quicker because heavy-duty obviously wasn't off as bad as the market. We were off about 6%, market was 20%, 21%. And we were way off in medium and a lot of it was timing, yes. So sequentially, medium will pick up quicker because we're starting at a lower base, right, if you want to talk about sequential. We -- if I was to look out for the year, I expect a better year on the Class 8 side up over the last year and maybe medium will be closer. It will catch back up to flat maybe for the year. So that bodes pretty well for the next few quarters because we started such a hole on the medium-duty side. But I expect heavy-duty to continue to ramp up, if you want me to throw a number out, say heavy-duty is up 15% in Q2. And if things hold together, we get through all the emissions clarification and business that continues to look better for our customer base, both across the board vocationally and over-the-road. Over-the-road is what we've talked about mainly. We do a lot of vocational business, over-the-road is still the biggest market that's out there, right? You're talking 2/3 of the market. So if that continues to get better for that customer base, we will continue to increase quarter-by-quarter as the year goes, and I believe for sure roll into Q1 because remember, from an emissions perspective, it's all about when the engine was built and usually -- I don't want to get into the weeds. Usually, those engines will be built maybe halfway through January of next year. And because we are the retailer and it takes anywhere from 32 days to 5 months, depending on the type of product it is to get there, that bodes well for us all the way through next year in Q1. And I don't -- if the economy is in good shape and the business is still aligned, look, the number that's going to come out this year probably is not going to be anything more than a normal replacement. The deal is it's going to be backloaded, right? I mean 41,000 units was all Class 8. It was COVID, second quarter of 2020, I think it was -- second and third quarter of 2020, that's the lowest in 6 years. And medium was the lowest since 2015. So it wasn't just us, even though we were a little worse on the medium side. So when you think about it, with that emissions regulations and improving business conditions, economic conditions for our customer base as long as the geopolitical things stay out of the way, I mean, it's set there to just ramp up slowly. It's not going to be an add water and stir thing just in Q2, but you better believe Q2 better be better than Q1, but it's not going to creep dramatically, but it's going to build. And I believe that's the case across our whole business model, right? I really -- I feel good. There's not one segment that I can sit here right now and tell you, I feel bad about. And I feel good. I'm not going to sit here and feel great like that, but I feel good about the whole thing. I want to watch it continue to evolve. We're still working business, okay? We really are. We've been -- we've had -- as I've said, we've had nice order intake with the majority of it going to start coming in, in Q2. I said maybe up 15% on Class 8 and maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but somewhere in that range, the timing rules and all those things, too. But it should build from there through the rest of the year and through Q1 anyway for sure. And typically, hopefully, our parts and service will build, as I told you, has been slowly building. I'm looking forward to seeing it ramp up a little faster, but I don't always have my finger on that trigger.

Makes sense. Maybe I just -- for my second question, I just wanted to follow up on an earlier one and maybe ask about it from a different angle. Just the reduction in capacity in the freight market driving the improvement, how do you think, if at all, that affects new truck sales this cycle? Is that a headwind? Or does the emission regulation offset that? Just any thoughts around this kind of competing dynamics would be helpful.

Okay. Well, the first thing was supply, right? You really want the environment to be better from a demand perspective, right? You have supply and you got demand to your point about supply. Supply has been pulled out for really the last 3 quarters, okay? If you took the last Q3, Q4 and Q1 and strung them together, it's going to scare you how low a retail was from a demand perspective, to be honest with you, it would be under 200,000 units in the U.S., okay, annualized. But that has taken the supply up. But you need a combination of both, right? So it was nice to see the tonnage bumped up in a couple of the months. I think it was February, I'm not mistaken, if I'm not mistaken. And even though it's not robust, you got both of those, I believe it will continue. And like I said a minute ago, even if we -- there's something like 41,000 in the U.S., ACT says it will be 225,000, right? Well, it means it's going to have to average 60,000. So that's a 50% bump, 60,000 a quarter, but it's not going to be loaded like that, it will probably be 50,000 in Q2. And then so that just bumps up Q3 and Q4, right, to even get to that 225,000, which is really under replacement or right at replacement. It's really under replacement. So that is a driver. But people have to -- 3 years freight recession man, that was -- I've never seen one like that, right? And I felt so sorry for a lot of our customers. I really did. We were fortunate enough with our diversified business model and how we go to market that we don't rely upon one revenue stream. We just haul freight. No disrespect to my customer base, but we don't. So I've had to watch the suffering for the last 3 years. So it's just -- I feel better. I feel good for them. I'm kind of watching all the suffering of that over-the-road segment of the customer base, whether it be the small buyer or the large buyer across the board. But I believe that if demand will hold right, I can't -- I'm not an expert on the demand side. There's too many macroeconomic influences on the demand side. I do know that the average age of fleet is probably a little over half a year or so more than where it should be, where most people like it. I mean I can tell you all these little bit anecdotes that I've got that make me feel good about it. And like I said, even if we have a big ramp-up and do 60,000 average 180-plus thousand in the last 3 quarters, we're still only going to be a replacement cycle. So that's not a huge big prebuy that scares you going forward from my perspective, which means we should roll through '26 and there won't be this big drop in '27. That's my viewpoint on the whole thing as I look at. I know -- I don't know if I answered your question because sometimes I just answer my own question.

No, I think you did. And I appreciate it.

So we're in good shape. The supply thing is really good because non-domiciled drivers, when we cracked that, it was -- there was a bunch of different anecdotes that have helped try to align that up and get it in line. And now it's not -- and just because we're going to have a little prebuy, I don't want to -- it won't be huge, so it won't get out of balance again. We may have maybe a couple, 3 years of nice growth across that segment.

And the next question will be coming from the line of Andrew Obin of Bank of America.

Maybe we can talk a little bit about -- you sort of talked about parts and services, clearly a focus for the OEM yesterday as well. You have this big initiative with large corporate customers. Can you just talk as to how that initiative is progressing? Are you -- do you think you are outgrowing the industry on parts and services? And what levers do you have to keep outgrowing the industry?

Yes. I would tell you, the first quarter, we were probably close to in line. Everything is crazy to me what I saw across the first quarter. I'm not talking -- I've got pretty good statistics on other dealer groups, okay? But we can get to our manufacturers. And probably the hardest hit piece was service. Service was back for us in Q1, and that's why maybe our margin mix was down a little bit because it comes into a mix, as you know, your margin is much higher on service than parts. But I was nervous. What are we doing wrong, right? But not that it makes you -- I don't want to ride the same boat with everybody else, so don't ever expect that. But at least I do know that across what I've been able to track across pretty much a large group of dealers that I was able to get their retail environment. Service was off across the board, 3% to 4%. It was up 4% across a group -- group of 200-some-odd dealers. How about that? I have that information. So it doesn't make me feel any better. We were up a little less than that. So -- but it still was interesting that the spend -- customer spend was off in Q1. And it's just the ending of, as I said, tightening your belt, right? People have just tightened their belt the last couple of 3 quarters. When you asked about the initiative, yes, our initiatives are still there for sure. We grew our national account business, okay? But at the same time, that was on the parts side. I think people really tightened up on the service piece a lot. When I say that, you can extend maintenance intervals. There's many things you can do. You don't have to fix every oil leak, okay? You don't have to -- you can extend your oil change maintenance interval 5,000 miles or something. As I said earlier, when things are tight, that's what people do. And that's why when their business gets better, people get back into a more normalized part of the cycle, what they do normally, right? They're not squeezing it here and there. So I think that's what we saw in Q1 because service was -- for us was down, too. Parts was up, but our service wasn't down as well. The numbers I pulled from some other folks, but it was close. So it was just -- but as people -- as their business gets better, they'll get back to more normalized spending cycle. And that's what I expect to happen because that's what I think as people -- the spot market folks was up 25%, 30%, okay, year-over-year. So that's a good thing, right? The balance between spot and contract got way better, right? Because spot was so cheap for so long that people that had contracts weren't using that. They were using the spot market, right, where they could take advantage and it just spiraled down all the rates over the last 3 years. But getting a better balance across that right now is allowing folks to be more optimistic. And when they're optimistic, people spend money, okay? That's just the way it works. When your business gets better, you don't worry about doing things that are out of the norm for you. You know what the right things to do, but when things are tough, you squeeze. And it's the same thing we do with our business, no different. I just -- as I've said many times, I just -- I love our business model, whether it's through our leasing or parts or service or sales, we have many different revenue streams that allow us to balance our way through the last 3 years, 2/3 of the trucks on the road or over the road, and we managed to produce decent earnings, right? So Andrew, I expect parts and service, all of that initiative is still ongoing. As I said, it was up last year on the parts side. The service side has been my most concerning piece, to be honest with you. Parts was slightly up, and it will get even better through that initiative and many other initiatives that I'm not going to talk about, by the way, that we always have ongoing. That's -- you've always got to have something going, I can tell you that. So we track.

And maybe, Rusty, you have a footprint across the country. You sometimes share with us what you're seeing in terms of macro. Can you just go and just, a, what are you seeing in terms of macro overall and just maybe sort of go on key verticals, right? You clearly have big off-road presence. So what are we seeing in key off-road verticals? And then are you seeing any impact in your oil and gas business from higher commodity prices? And clearly, I think we talked of on-road, but just maybe just give us an overview of what you're seeing from a macro perspective in some of your key verticals.

Sure. Well, geographically, from a spend perspective, I would tell you that we're up slightly in the first quarter, say, in refuse and construction, right? Most of the other is still -- is not -- it is flat, to be honest with you. We haven't seen that. Our national accounts were pretty flat in Q1. Now they were up last year, and -- but we're not keeping up with -- should I say, with our plan. Our plan was already in the first quarter. It's been -- there's not one huge terrible area, Andrew. I expect our -- we still suffer our unmanaged accounts. That would probably be the one thing. If you remember what I told you about unmanaged accounts before. That's the small customer, which still makes up 30% or so of our business. And I've got to tell you, it is a little over 30%. It is -- even though it was bad last year, it's down almost another 10% the first quarter of this year. So -- but we've managed to make it up. We managed to make our revenues up with -- in different sectors, like I said, really vocational has been probably the biggest thing that we managed to keep from a parts and service perspective. When I say that, we're talking about refuse construction, all the vocational businesses from that perspective. Geographically, I would tell you, we've seen Florida continues to be strong. I didn't touch on oil and gas. We haven't seen that big a bump from oil and gas yet, right? We do expect to possibly see something, but it has not come to fruition yet. I don't want to go through all the regions, but probably -- but Texas is always one of the strongest areas we have along with Florida. And if I remember right, we were doing fairly well in the Chicago region this year in Northern Illinois region, too also. But I don't want to go through 23 states, but I would tell you that, again, I feel good about all of them that we're going to continue to get gradual improvement without any of this geopolitical stuff getting in the way. I think we're lined up for continued solid, which is actually better than having some huge prebuy, right? It goes on from a sales perspective or everything else. I just want to see a consistent solid growth and taking share because taking share is what it's about. And maybe we didn't take as much share as I wanted in Q1, which were slightly better than what I've seen from others, but slightly is not good enough. So we're focused on continuing to do what we've done in the past. We've got some other initiatives we're rolling out. And all I can say is we're ready. We're ready, willing and able and excited to what I believe is going to be the better environment, as I continue to say, without any interruption from something outside of the industry itself.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question will be coming from the line of Cole Couzens of Wolfe Research.

Yesterday, PACCAR suggested that recent order strength is perhaps a little misleading and that build rates and retail sales remain more muted and thus, the pricing backdrop remains more competitive right now. What do you think is driving recent order strength? And how sustainable are current order rates in the coming months?

Good question, right, because I believe that -- well, not as robust as, say, what we saw in February, which was what was that, 46,000 or something like seventh or eighth best month ever that's happened. I think that was a little overstated driven by one OEM. I do believe there's strength in the order intake. And I do believe as long as we're going to keep bringing up this overseas stuff. As long as that doesn't interfere, I believe there's going to be sustainability to continued solid order intake. Now is that 30,000 a month or something right now? I consider that a pretty good month myself. So I don't know -- from our perspective, I can only speak about from -- I can speak for more than that, but I know that what our order intake is and it continues to remain solid with a backlog, right? You don't just wake up one morning and somebody orders a truck from you. There's a process you go through, right, from a quoting and a competitive drop back. And people are still adjusting to all the tariffs, the OEMs, the customers, ourselves that will come part of everyday life, at least we've got -- at least we know what they are. Now our manufacturers understand from their own personal perspective what they are. And so I believe we're going to see continued -- I can't sit here and tell you it's going to stay over 35,000 a month as I said the other. But if it continues at 25,000 to 30,000, we didn't have a month like that for like 7 in a row, and we continue that. So we started from a low base as far as backlog. But I still believe there's going to be continued strength, maybe not as strong as a couple of the months we've seen, but continued order strength. And I think once we continue to get more clarity around emissions and customers' businesses, look, we didn't deliver many trucks the last 3 quarters, right? So people -- I know some customers have got off a trade cycle last year, right, that did not buy as much, right? It was last year, the U.S. was 216,000 or something like that. Well, that's under by 20-some-odd thousand what replacement is, and it's continued to be under replacement into Q1. And so even without all the outside activity, people have to get back to replacing trucks. It's funny that you think about it. Probably I know people thought, am I even going to be in business because that 3-year freight recession. All of a sudden, you wake up, you're getting more optimistic because you think you're going to get better rates, they're not going backwards. They've trough, they're coming back up. You see the spot environment. You go, I am going to still be in business. I do need to buy trucks, right? I can't be running old trucks all the time with my maintenance charts through the roof. So I believe there's some natural sustainability to it and you add in the emissions and other stuff that's coming forward on January 1. And I just believe it's going to continue to be good. I don't know -- I don't think there's going to be this huge prebuy, as I said earlier. But you could consider a prebuy based upon what the first quarter was, how bad the first quarter retail was and how, well really Q4 -- how bad Q4 was, right? So you have to get somewhat back in line. And the good part is I don't think it's going to just be crazy, right? I think it's going to be solid continued order growth because people's business is -- customers' businesses are getting better. And then the other outside influence of the emissions, which, like I said, we'll hopefully know more, but we know whatever it is, it's coming. So I mean, I hope that helps answer the question. But I feel good about it. And I've said that 100 times, I think, already. I'm not -- and I think it's sustainable for a while myself.

That's helpful, Rusty. And maybe just another question. Just in the context of an improving demand backdrop and visibility to higher truck prices next year, when do you think we can start to see truck pricing move higher this year? And is there a gross margin opportunity ahead of the EPA transition to sell older trucks you might have in inventory towards the end of the year or into early 2027?

Well, when you talk about that, you think about -- trust me, we talk about what inventories were going to carry, right, into the first quarter of next year just because as long as it's built, as that engine stamp dates December 31 are back. So -- and we'll make those determinations. For us, I mean, as far as the back part of the year, there's still build slots. So I think a lot of OEMs are protecting some of their Q4 build slots because they're trying to push them forward because you can't just go to the suppliers and say, okay, I need 3 or 4 months right now. They need to give them a better run rate of that. I know the build rates have moved up an OEM or 2. I've at least I've been told that. So I mean, from our perspective, we're trying to make sure we're properly inventoried. You got to make sure you got the demand for it, but we would like to be properly inventoried going into next year. I'm still going to sell into this year, too. Don't get me wrong. We've done a nice job, but we've still got room to sell in the back half of this year, but we still have activity out there, right? We continue to have activity. When you talk about older trucks, I'm not sure exactly what you mean if you're talking about carrying trucks into next year with these engines, we'll carry some stuff over. It won't be -- I can't tell you what that will be, but we're always carrying inventory. So it might ramp. We might carry a little bit more into next year. We just have to wait and see and see how the year plays out because there's still room to build them, right? So I hope that answers your question.

Yes. No, that's helpful. And maybe if I could squeeze one last question.

Sure. I'm going back to your conference for the first time in a while.

We're looking forward to it, Rusty. But on SG&A expense, it only increased 2% sequentially in the first quarter. That's a lot better than historical trends in 1Q. Can you maybe talk about the measures you're taking to kind of drive this cost management?

Yes. Well, a lot like our customers, I knew Q1 was going to be a trough. And this is a credit to the entire organization from my management staff down to every technician and everyone in the organization, it doesn't matter what you do. It was tough, right? We had to squeeze down and we did. It was -- it had to be contributed by a lot of folks. And those are never easy steps to make, right? Because normally, you're right. I mean we were down year-over-year, what, 2.5%, I think. And what -- I'm looking at just G&A. Remember, I know you haven't followed us for long, but I separate S over here because S is always just a derivative from truck sales, right? That's the commission piece off of truck sales. The G&A piece is what we were focused. And G&A by itself was off 2.5% in spite of inflation, in spite of normal raises last year, in spite of everything else. But that's the contributions by everybody. As business, we're going to try to maintain that discipline. That's always the hardest part, is maintain if you get into a growing environment. We're not in a growing environment yet. I talked about it all. I can see it coming, okay? We got to get that parts and service business back because that's really what I'm driving it off of, not so much truck sales, truck sales and truck sales. That G&A is driven by what we do in the parts and service business. So I appreciate from everyone's efforts in giving in that first quarter and what we had to do, made it tougher. We had to do cutbacks. But we did them, we executed, and we've done it before. And it's just part of being a somewhat cyclical business. Sometimes you have to make those tough decisions right and squeeze it back. So hopefully, our parts and service will continue to go up, and we love that. We love to be able to hire back some stuff again that parts and service business continues to go up. We want to keep the gross we get, mind you, but it takes -- there's a cost to doing it, right? We always tell everybody, we're trying to keep at least 40%, 50% of every gross profit dollar of parts and service, but it takes people to make it happen. So when that starts to grow, we'll be able to maybe add some folks to help us. It's a chicken and egg thing. But it was a great job by our team to do that. It wasn't me or anything that I did. It was just an overall effort throughout the organization, realizing how tough the quarter was going to be going into it. So I'm just extremely proud of the entire organization and their execution. And I look forward to hopefully a little more breathing room as we get downstream without having to be quite so hard and tight on everybody.

That does conclude today's Q&A session. I would like to turn the call back over to Rusty for closing remarks. Go ahead, please.

Yes. Well, I just want to appreciate everybody joining us this morning, and we will look forward to speaking to everybody in July, and we'll discuss Q2 and see if everything is still -- the outlook is the same. I'm banking on it. See you. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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