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The engine: the newest model, the 2007, had a Caterpillar C-15. It had 475 horses of deisel power. It’s a 6-cyl, 4-stroke with a compression ratio of 18:1. The 475 Cat engine uses 10 gallons of oil and comes in at a weight of just under 3,000 pounds. 2,890. The engine has a battery backup, electronic self-diagnostics, cold weather start, real-time clock, and re-programmable operational parameters.

A CAT will go 1,000,000 plus miles EASILY taken care of, according to some owners. CATs are more expensive to fix but PARTS for the CATS are FAR more available then the others.

You can put 12,000 pounds on the front axel and 38,000 on the rear. The rear end ratio is 3.36. Transmission: a 13-speed. Tank? 100-gallons. It also has tandem axels and a Pete Flex Air suspension system. This truck was the flagship for Peterbilt for its 20 years of production.

You can get these trucks used quite cheap, and they’re still popular — maybe the most popular truck ever, and which continues to resell well because of that popularity.

One warning to those thinking about getting into a Peterbilt, from an owner: If you buy a tractor cheap, you should have around 8,000 to 10,000 dollars on hand. This is for repairs. You might have to overhaul the engine or tranny/clutch. You might have to do both at the same time.  “I SEE lots of drivers buy cheap trucks and 6 months later its getting overhauled (inframed) then wondering how the heck there gonna pay for the work,” stated the trucker online.

The top image is a 379 Peterbilt built by Rod and Kevin (Pickett Custom Trucks) – with a 600 horsepower Caterpillar and 18 speed transmission.

The Aerodyne: The Cabover Model From Kenworth

Aerodyne can only come from aerodynamic. Some people have noted that they are seeing less of these K100 trucks. Owners also note that they can sometimes load more than most because their light weight is lighter. But you have to be careful about the front axle weight.  Another thing to weigh for those considering buying one of these vintage trailers is that they have lower costs to buy, but their engines are more inefficient.

The reason they’re cheaper than conventionals might be that less people want to run them, so it might be possible to get them cheaper for a newer model with less miles than a conventional at its initial price. But the other thing is that a lot of these have been worn right out and scrapped. They also look very attractive — sometimes luxurious — with big sleeper units attached to them. They become almost like RVs and sell for much more.

One trucker online put the difference between COEs and conventionals in these terms: “The difference between aero of a COE and a conventional (especially if you’re comparing an 80s K100 against a 90s T6 for example) is not cut and dry. Europeans drive cab overs for length not aero reasons, but because they have to drive COEs they have made a number of improvements in aero for them. The old cab overs in the US were never designed to be efficient like modern aero trucks have been.”

Are cabovers in North America sort of being held back in design because they are not popular with drivers and owners? I should say not as popular, because there are a lot of people who are extremely enthusiastic about cabover trucks. Or are cabovers in the States and Canada benefiting from design improvements developed n Europe?

The milage on these is around 6.5 mpg.

One thing a lot of people say about these trucks, though. They look very cool coming down the road, especially when they have those long custom sleepers, whether stock or modifications.

Luxury RV

Another unconventional luxury recreational vehicle. The base on this here RV is a trailer — 53 feet or 16.10 meters — so far nothing unusual, we would say almost a bus. But everything changes when this luxury mobile is parked and new dimensions start sliding out of it.

Four slides come out like drawers to give much more floor space on the bottom of the RV and the roof rises to give height to the top one. The roof rises by 8 hydraulic cylinders and the furniture fits into each other when its folded together. Now it gets interesting when everything is opened out to its maximum, kitchen and living down the middle, bathroom in the back.

Upstairs, there is a lounge in the back, an office and a bedroom at the front, all with panoramic views. The heating and cooling system is at the front of the trailer and does not encroach on the length of this RV. There’s a decent kitchen. And the room behind the office is the TV room.

This vehicle and its layout is the work of a company called Anderson, out of California. Initially, the guy who made this luxury RV rented it out as a motor home for film sets and crews. The kind of thing big rich movie stars want to have on set. Then he had a mini-recording studio in a big RV like this. There are a number of big luxury RVs like this, but I’m pretty sure this one is Steve Elkington’s — the golfer. I’ve seen photos of it in white and in the silver color up above.

He was also contracted by actor Will Smith to build him a trailer (for Men in Black III, reportedly), and several other big screen names.

As you can see, there are a lot of expensive and high-end amenities in the interior of this luxury RV.

Luxury RV

This luxury RV trailer is pulled by some good power. And the trailer itself is a long one — 52 feet. It can also become a wide one. With its drawer it probably becomes around 150% its compact width. Often you see these with more than one drawer, but I guess these guys had other purposes for theirs — or maybe they thought they’d add more later. You can get slide conversions for around $70,000 (although that might be for 2 slides) I think, for pretty much any vehicle.

The tractor here is a Peterbilt 387. It has a Caterpillar C15 engine with 550 horsepower, so the owner won’t need to worry about power when going on long trips over the hills and mountains of our land. The back of the trailer is actually a garage with two levels. The bottom one one is where you would normally store a car.

If you’re looking at these luxury RV trailers (or motorhomes if that’s your preference), this one would be just a taste, because the US and Canada make a lot of campers, trailers, motorhomes, totorhomes, as you can see on our other posts. There is a huge variety and price can be either way higher than you’d expect or lower.

For example, this Peterbilt and trailer went up for sale (used, of course) a while ago and it was listed for $350,000. But then they reduced the luxury RV to $60,000. I’ve seen cuts of more than that. One interesting thing about this one is the paint job. Look at what they did with the windows, which are blacked out with tint, painting swathes around them. It kind of looks like a luxury RV orca.

 

Luxury RV Classic

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This way-American truck camper aroused much curiosity at a recent Paris Air Show, where they don’t see a lot of 12-meter (53 feet) RVs — yes, it’s a truck imported into France. And with the long nose and large chrome grill, this truck will probably continue to draw attention.

The tractor basis is a 6-cylinder 500 horsepower-Peterbilt  imported from the U.S. — after having driven nearly 3 million kilometers in the States! This beefy luxury RV creation was imagined and realized by Verschueren workshops in Belgium, a company based near Tournai. Everything belongs to an old French entrepreneur who wanted to something like this for his retirement. He plans to make several trips to the mountains.

It can accommodate 10 people in luxury RV style — there’s 25 square meters of space on the interior (with the two slides). This RV conversion cost around 750,000 Euros, which is around $794,000 U.S dollars. Not sure if you could buy this kind of thing at an RV dealers

The Frenchman’s impressive luxury coach measures 12 meters long and 4 meters high (that’s about 53 feet long and 13 feet high). It carries a reserve 1,500 liters of clean water (800 l. For wastewater), nearly a ton of batteries (Lithium), a generator, and full air conditioning … The interior combines elegance and fine materials (parquet Solid chain, full grain leather upholstery, granite work surface, custom-made furniture, and solid oak wooden floors). As a bonus, on the left, two expandable slides allow its owner to have more space at the push of a button. The payload of this rig is 12,000 kgs, so there is a lot of extra room available for carrying capacity.

Luxury Peterbilt technical details:

• Truck: Peterbilt 379
• Engine: Cat 15
• GVW/ CU: 22,000 / 4,000
• Facilities: sofa, beds, coffee machine, dishwasher)
• Also has: extractor hood with slides that are front 102 x  260 x H198 cm and rear 102 x 218 x H 217 cm

The interior is spare and clean — it looks like it was just custom-made. I hope this luxury RV will suit the old-timer well on his mountain trips.

Sign up for our weekly Trucker (and RVer) email! Once-per-week, you get an email with some great trucks (plus access to free classifieds) [CLICK HERE]!

Peterbilt Luxury Motorhome

Presenting the Peterbilt 387 Motorhome, a powerful luxury machine made from an American-made Peterbilt tractor and a high end RV conversion company. This RV looks beefy and bright — an attention getter no doubt, and has all the luxury amenities you would expect of a high-end RV while also having European style elements.

It can be used for travel, yes — imagine travelling around the country in something like this with your family? Although the family is the most important thing, and the travel with them can be done in any vehicle, still this one is worth a look. It can also be used for filming (the kind of luxury movie stars request), artist house (wildlife photographers, painters, etc), or an itinerant hotel for sporting events like NFL or CFL games in North America or Tour de France in Europe, which is where this RV is — it’s a French company called Location-Motorhome (you can visit them here on their French-language website). It looks like they might just have this one truck, which is available to rent.

This Peterbilt 387 is styled like an upscale camper. It has a large room in the rear, good air conditioning, large flat-screen TV, DVD, Blu Ray player, internet connection, and other entertainment, and has 6 beds.

The central part of the luxury home on wheels is the lounge area (which has a slide) as well as a large shower, sink and toilet. The leather couch folds into a 2-person bed.  In the kitchen there is a large refrigerator with freezer, cooking stoves, a large microwave oven, and a coffee machine, in addition to kitchen sinks. The seats in the cockpit also convert into comfortable beds.

This is a large, sturdy-looking large car luxury motorhome that you could drive almost anywhere there’s pavement.

Look at that! 1969 Peterbilt!

Would you believe this machine comes from way back in 1969? It was recently owned by Wilkins Oklahoma Truck Supply, which is out of Tonkawa, Oklahoma, a city with a population of just a little over 3,000 people. Its a Peterbilt 359. The 358 (288 single drive) was Peterbilt’s first tilt hood. Basically it was a tilt hood 351. It was available from 1965 until 1976. The 358 was later available with a fiberglass hood. The 359 was the first wide-nosed conventional made by the company. It came in 119 inch and 127 inch long hood BBC configurations.

It carried Detroit Diesel 12v71 engines and other specific types. Between 1967 and 72, the truck had a small-windowed “Unilite” cab. Why do they call them Peterbilt? A researcher, Dylan Baranski, explained: “The company was founded by T.A. Peterman in 1939 from the ashes of Fageol Motors.

“He was originally a lumber salesman who was having trouble getting logs to his lumber mill quickly enough. So, he started rebuilding surplus army trucks & improved with each successive vehicle he made. Sadly, Mr. Peterman died in 1945, but his wife Ida sold the company to 7 people in the company’s management, who expanded the company & made it into what it is today.”

By the way, a note of Fageol Motors. The original Freighliners were built from Fageol parts because the tractors of the day couldn’t handle the rough slopes and terrain required by some industry companies. The pictured Peterbilt is obviously a sleeper model.

At the time it was made, the late 60’s, 30″ and 36″ sleepers were available. You could get bigger ones, where Peterbilt would work with Mercury to paint the bigger (40 or 60″) custom sized sleeper. Peterbuilt themselves started making bigger ones in 1978.

Raised roofs (high cubes) started in 1986. Images by Hank’s Truck Pictures

Crochet Tall Comfy Socks (Patterns)

Well, one of the nice things about crochet, I guess you could say, is you can make things that you just can’t buy in stores, and you can customize them, and these types of tall socks are no exception. Because you can crochet so many different patterns/ textures, and you can use two or more crochet patterns together, you can really make some crochet projects that appeal to a lot of people. That’s just what a few crocheters on the internet have done with loose, tall socks. Here we have two patterns — one is free and one is not, but we couldn’t do without either one!

That’s because this paid crochet pattern (the one in the image above) is something we couldn’t find anywhere else — and it’s probably something a lot of crocheters out there think is very elegant. The pattern costs $5.00 from Craftsy for these socks. I’ve seen socks like these — actually, knee highs but pretty similar — being sold with prices like $60 and $70 on Etsy.

These Craftsy crochet socks use chains, doubles, singles and slips to crochet them, and you can make socks that fit many sizes because of how stretchy they are.

For this crochet project, you need:

100gr sport weight yarn or sock yarn, a 3.25 mm (D) crochet hook, and elastic thread

Now we always like to provide a free option. And we did find one tall crochet socks pattern by a crafter named Sarah at Ball Hank n Skein. The socks use one pattern more or less throughout, so they might be easier than the top (Craftsy) pattern. They are also one-size-fits-all.

Stitches used: single, double, “single crochet 2 together,” and “foundation single crochet”

Needed:

5 ounce heavy worsted or bulky yarn, a J hook or hook

How to make the socks: start out with the toe, crocheting in a spiral, then continue on up the foot and make a loop to go around the ankle to the back of the foot (leaving the heel exposed), then crochet up the leg in the same progressive way. Then you can fill in the heel and the top of the sock.

 

Visit Craftsy for the $5 pattern (click here). Visit Ball Hank n Skein for the free pattern (click here).