Improve things!
This orange and black tractor might look familiar to some of you, and that’s because it was featured in a famous movie in the 80s.
For those whose memory needs a little jogging, the film starred Hollywood heavyweight-champ Sylvester Stallone and is one of the most famous trucker movies out there.
“Over the Top” was the film. It was a 1987 film and it was partly written by Stallone, who was a long-hauler trying to win back his son. The other big theme in the film was arm wrestling. Stallone tries to go “over the top” and beat all challengers in the competition.
The grand prize for that arm wrestling competition is … does anyone remember?
$100,000, and this was 1987, so that equates to $214,050 in today’s money. Another part of that prize: a custom truck that Stallone wants to be an owner-operator and have his own trucking company. He already owns a truck at the start, but he sells that for $7,000 to bet on himself.
Money’s not the main motivation in the film, though. His mother’s father actually offers Stallone half a mil plus a custom truck), but Stallone turns this down.
Would $100,000 be enough to buy this truck today, though? Well, it came up for auction a few years ago on Mecum Auctions (visit them, click here). [UPDATE: Willie Bartley on Plains Trains let us know it also came up on Ebay not too long ago, and he thought it was going for around $40,000-60,000. He also sent over the eBay photo (last one at bottom). Thanks, Willie!] I bet it has a fantastic HD alignment. Just look at it!
It’s a 1986 Volvo. Not a lot of details were given on the auction. It’s got a grey interior, a shower and sink, it’s “big enough for 6” whatever than means, and has an auto transmission. If you’re looking to buy a truck, you might want to browse truck auctions to see what’s on offer in your price range.
By the way, I should have said Stallone’s character Hawk is trying to get $100,000, not Stallone. The actor was reportedly paid $12 million 1987 dollars to star in the picture, which would have been enough to buy a fleet of these, I’d expect.
This classic cabover is a 1951 Freightliner, and it dates back to the days when Freightliner was a West Coast brand.
This particular old cabover was shared by the people over at Truckfax a few years ago, and he said it was located in Quebec, Canada when the photo was taken in the summer of 1992.
The guy over there, Mac Mackay, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, still writes … about all kinds of vehicles and the Canadian trucking industry, so check him out some time (click here).
Here’s another interesting Freighliner cabover, from his province of Nova Scotia — in Dartmouth.
It’s a big high-rise sleeper and drom box on a set-back axle chassis that ran for MacCosham Van Lines out of Edmonton, Alberta.
What do you guys all think the best era was for Freighliner cabovers?
Westward was an America’s Cup yacht that, under the captainship of Charlie Barr, defeated all challengers between 1893 and 1920, including Britannia, Lulworth and Meteor II. The yacht was the fastest in the world in the early 1900’s. This yacht pictured, the Eleonora, is an exact replica of the Westward, and is available to rent for $82,000 per week.
It was designed by the American yacht design innovator — besides naval architect and mechanical engineer — Nathaneal Green e Herreshoff.
Herreshoff designed several famous craft, including the 144-foot America’s Cup Reliance, Enterprise, and Rainbow, plus Defender and Columbia, in addition to Westward.
I guess to rent and sail this yacht would be to understand a piece of sailing history, and a piece of American history.
Eleonora was launched in 2000, and has sailed in regattas and continues to take part in history by hosting high profile guests, over 100 years after Westward began to sail.
Specs of Eleonoa yacht:
Type: 135 ft Classic Schooner
Naval Architect: Original design by Nathanel G. Herreshoff
Shipyard: Scheepswerf van der Graaf, the Netherlands
Year: 2000
LOA: 49.50 m
Beam: 8.20 m
Draft: 5.20 m
Displacement: 213 t
Hull Material: Steel
Engine: Baudouin 6R124
Crew: 9
Sail Area: 1100 m2
Cabins: 8
Guests: 8
Location: Western Mediterranean
To enquire about renting this luxury yacht, visit Hoek Brokerage Charters (click here).
This luxury yacht seems to have a lot of people curious, and reports are it’s not a commonly viewed craft, either. It’s the superyacht once owned by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs and it’s called “Venus.”
The yacht was created for Jobs, and has been spotted in various locations, including the Virgin Islands last year.
Jobs himself never set foot on the craft, since he died of pancreatic cancer in 2011, and the craft was completed in 2012, four years after being commissioned. Jobs reportedly conceived the idea of having a luxury yacht built for him after summer trips on a friend’s yacht, businessman Larry Ellison.
The yacht was built by Feadship and was desiged by Ubik, the design company of Philippe Stark. The boat cost over $100 million to build, but in 2012 upon completion there was a dispute about payment, and the yacht was impounded at the Port of Amsterdam. Designer Stark claimed to be still owed 3 million Euro of his 9 million Euro fee for designing the boat.
The bill was paid by the Job’s estate and the boat left the dock a few days later.
Not a lot is known about the yacht. It is just under 80 meters long (260 feet). It has six bedrooms and a communication system between the different rooms so that there would be no need to yell aboard ship. Jobs reportedly did not like noise, and wanted the yacht set up so that he could be at the opposite end of the boat from the teenage children who would also be aboard. The designer commented that that was how Jobs also structured his home life: kids, dog and wife didn’t make a lot of noise.
What do you all think of this dump truck? It’s a 4900SA Expediter by Western Star. I thought it was worth at least posting it up here, as it’s a kind of striking machine, although I’m not sure of how many of you out there reading our vehicle posts are into this type of truck.
It’s a 2011, and they came with Detroit Deisel DD13 engines, which put out between 350 and 450 horsepower, and had Eaton Fuller FR-13210B tranmissions (they came in between 10 and 18 speed versions).
The cabs were steel conventional types, and the frame was 5/16 x 3-1/2 x 10-5/8 in. steel 120KSI. They had WABCO 4S/4M ABS brakes and had 12,000 / 36,000 suspension (with a taperleaf on front and flat in the rear).
The front axels had 12,000 pound capacity and the rears had 40,000. Wheelbase was 188 inches.
I’ll write up more on these types of trucks if there’s interest in them.
Which model will you go with today, driver? These three Kenworth Aerodyne classics show the types of exterior finishes in fashion in the vintage trucking era.
This set of photos is from “Kevin in Sydney” Australia by way of “Rodders” and was shown to all truck enthusiasts by the Commercial Motor Big Lorry Blog a few years ago. We touched up the photos and here they are.
They referred to the stripes on the green exterior COE as “Yankee paint stripes.”
Visit Commercial Motors (click here).
This 80s Freightliner cabover was posted up to Overdrive Online ealier this year. Not much is known about it, as it was just a user-submitted photo, not a feature, but it looked nice and I though you might all like to see it, as well as it being just a pretty good photo shot of a truck in its natural surroundings. Where is this? Can you guess?
This cabover belongs to one Robert Carr. It’s got a 400 horsepower Cummins engine inside it, and Carr says that he “totally redid” the COE since it’s original stock configuration.
Carr said he cared about this Freightliner “like his kids.”
Visit Overdrive Online (click here).
Since our first write up on this classic truck, a lot of people have been filling in the details on it. Not only filling in details, they’ve been posting their own questions.
So this is for all you out there who want some info on this big classic Kenworth.
To view our original write up on this custom cabover, click here. There’s another update there too from that page that has some info about how the truck used to be.
According to Milton Wood III, this truck at some point after this photo was taken (photo above) had its big sleeper removed, and the owners cut the tractor really short and repainted it. It was painted white. Johnny Di Franco said he thought it lived somewhere in Ontario now. Then, according to Ernie Erickson Jr. it has been painted again and he sent 2 photos (photos down below), one of the cabover and one of the bunk that used to be on it (special thanks to Ernie here). It was originally an ATDS truck. It was originally an ATDS truck.
Not only did a bunch of people say they remember the truck from when they were young, and some said they saw it at Truckers Aid, they said they’d like to know where it is now. Since it’s changed quite a bit since the photo, its a good thing people took these photos. Thanks photographers (by the way, we want to know who you all are, so we can note that in here too). Thanks guys.
This 2016 Newmar has a lot of new motorhome features. You might expect that from the company that first put slides on commercial motorhomes back in 1989.
For example, the exterior water compartment and pluming is a fully-insulated compartment, so motorcoach travellers can drive to northern freezing climates and be better able to stay there in their coach.
To make it easier to get into storage compartments on this RV, Newmar now uses a “slipper hinge” which lowers the door aw it opens, making it easier to get in there and access the storage compartments.
For the hydronic heat system (they use Oasis), they have a smaller unit than before, but which puts out 50,000 BTUs of heat and unlimited hot water.
In the management compartment in the front, there’s switches for hydraulic slide out in the front (to get to the generator and everything) and all the all the exterior freezes.
They still use (optional) the collision avoidance system up front, and the same front cap which provides access for service.
To read even more about this coach, click here. This very motorhome was actually for sale on the motorhome specialists, the hitch house’s website, although it’s since sold. You can see what other motorhomes they have for sale by clicking here. Here’s their photo for the Newmar coach.
Which model will you go with today, driver? These three Kenworth Aerodyne classics show the types of exterior finishes in fashion in the vintage trucking era.
This set of photos is from “Kevin in Sydney” Australia by way of “Rodders” and was shown to all truck enthusiasts by the Commercial Motor Big Lorry Blog a few years ago. We touched up the photos and here they are.
They referred to the stripes on the green exterior COE as “Yankee paint stripes.”
Visit Commercial Motors (click here).