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This truck was later bought by trucker Jeremy Graves who turned it into his own highly custom version of an oil hauler semi. He renamed the truck “The Bucket List” and did a bunch of new custom work to it. Maybe we’ll feature the new version of this custom rig, too. Do you think we should?

Truck:
Model: 2007 379 Legacy Class Edition Peterbilt
Engine: 565hp Cummins ISX
Transmission: 18-speed Eaton Fuller

Custom:
chopped roof
custom motorbike headlights
10-inch pipes

Trailer:
all chrome
matching custom red paint on top and flames
luxury suite inside
horse trailer still takes up part of inside
trailer polish

UPDATE: Thanks to Rowdy Ferrington, a member of the Plains Trains page, who sent two photos of the trucks current appearance.

Big Show: “Showtime” Truck

This semi truck has been customized with a huge studio sleeper unit, some chrome and a serious paint job. There’s so much to say about what as been done to this custom big rig. How many lights do you think this custom super sleeper has? It’s a 1999 Kenworth and it’s called “Showtime” by its owner, one David Kelly.

It’s a Kenworth W900L. The custom big rig used to be owner-operator Mavin VanKeppen’s MC Van Kampen trucking in Michigan, but was sold to UK citizen Kelly and “Showtime Productions,” the company the truck is now a part of, and he debuted it on the British Island in 2010. It probably stands out against all the cabovers they have over in Europe.

Specs of this big studio sleeper custom rig:
Model: 1999 Kenworth w900L
Engine: 600bhp Cat cranked to 1000bhp
Transmission 18 speed eaton gearbox
Wheelbase: 350 inch
Sleeper unit: custom 165 inch sleeper
Location: Saint Helens, UK

Customized with:
custom designed hood and grill abased on 1949 style
two 150-gallon fuel tanks
3 water tanks
8-inch exhaust stacks
chrome landing gear
custom paint job

Inside: 25″ TV, satellite system, custom wood dashboard with gold trim, custom wooden floor, fridge
freezer, microwave oven, toilet and shower, 76 inch leather sofa, reflective ceiling with fiber optic illumination

Photos by Road Rat and Ross Burnham at Hanks Truck Pictures. Visit their sites. For our write up on the big blue sleeper semi that’s quite a bit like this one, click here.

Big Sleeper Conversion Unit

This big custom sleeper conversion is done on a Kenworth T660, which is a truck you can get with the industry-leading PACCAR MX-13 engine and a bunch of other modern Kenworth features like NavPlus in-dash information system, quiet cabin, ergonomic interior, etc.

This one has a 150 inch custom sleeper on it that was done at Minnesota’s Custom Studio Sleepers. The sleeper is 90 inches wide. As you can see, it has wood cabinets, drawers, a 26 inch flatscreen TV, sink, shower/toilet unit, ventilator fan, and a bunch of other comforts and amenities.

The company that does these custom sleeper conversions specializes in tall, deep cherry wood cabinets, fold out dinettes with benches beneath the beds, twin beds that fold so there can be passage between the bed and cabinets, full stand up shower / toilet combinations, sliding shower doors (for access when the bed is down).

They also do a custom thick insulation job on any OEM sleeper. They say that’s the reason it is so hard to keep the elements out of a sleeper — hot or cold — insufficient insulation.

Most don’t have even 3/8ths of an inch. They put in 2 inches of foam to the three custom sleeper walls and roof and 3 to 4 inches under the floor. They also put a protective sheet on the bottom of the sleeper to cut down being effected by wind and noise.

Comeback Classic

A family trucking company owns this custom cabover. It’s a 1995 362 Peterbilt and it’s owned by McAllister Enterprises.

This truck has:
N14 Celect Cummins
15-speed transmission
3.55 DS402 cogs out back
260 inch factory wheelbase

And Matt McAllister, whose story this truck represents — he wanted to have a cabover since he rode in one during a parade, and tried to buy this one from its previous owners for years — added these custom features:

drop visor
custom mesh grill
18-inch front bumper
rear light bar
LED lights throughout the truck
“doghouse” shuttered grill at the back of the cab unlike others
8-inch miter-cut straight stacks
custom hydraulic tank
unique stack brackets with LED lights
custom deck plate

The interior of this truck is still more or less stock with wood-grain dash and oxblood carpeting and leather.

The color of the truck is McAllister Enterprises’ colors:yellow and white.

Visit Ten Four Magazine, where we learned about this truck.

 

A Trucking Couple

A couple truckers, or a trucker couple, owns this semi tractor / more or less RV unit. They’re Duane and Cindy Anwiler and they’re from North Dakota. They’ve been trucking together for 12 years. They get a good amount of money, travel freely, and spend time with each other.

This story has a bit of the old guy-asks-girl-out-but-she-says-no-so-he-asks-again to it. He had to ask her out for several months in Nebraska where he was doing some farming for a while before she said yes to a dinner with him. They got married in 1980 and soon after returned to North Dakota, Duane’s home.

After Duane started driving trucks again, he started to teach Cindy how to drive. This is the second truck they had. It was a:

2003 Peterbilt 379 (bought new)

Cat C-15 engine

18-speed transmission

3.55 rears

70 inch standup sleeper

Basically stock.

But since then they’ve done some customization to this tractor:

changing headlights

adding double JJ fender brackets and blinker bars

rebuilt motor (when it fell apart)

upgraded the sleeper

stretched the wheelbase from 272 to 322″

mounted a new 120-inch ARI sleeper to the truck

added oversized front rims and tires

installed a new 14,400 heavy duty front axle

added a 32-inch flat screen TV and sound system

oak cabinets

two-burner cooktop

microwave/convection oven,

toilet and shower,

fridge/freezer

70-gallon water gank,

gen,

two 170-gallon fuel tanks

They also added custom exterior features to their truck:

7-inch chrome exhaust

seven KW grille bars

stainless steel cab and sleeper panels

stainless steel trim pieces with lights around the sleeper

headache rack behind big bunk

added chrome-colored graphics to the raspberry pearl paintjob

Visit Ten Four Magazine, where we learned about this trucking story.

In-Depth Look at the College Football Playoff

The Bowl Championship Series lasted from 1998 to 2013, and while the combined formula of computers, coaches and press tried its best to select the best 2 teams to compete for the National Championship in college football at the end of each year, the fact of the matter was that hardly anybody was really satisfied with the way the selection process was handled. The BCS came under intense scrutiny in most years of its existence with one of the main arguments against the BCS being that it was too complex of a selection system.

A change was finally made before the start of the 2014 college football season as a new postseason system would be implemented to make sure that the selection process of the teams competing for the National Championship would be more fair and easier to understand. Let’s take an in-depth look at how this new system is set up.

Instead of 2 teams in the old BCS format, the new College Football Playoff format involves the top 4 teams playing for the National Championship. A Selection Committee comprised of 13 members that are spread across the board in backgrounds, having affiliation with conferences or no affiliation at all, will present their top 25 rankings of teams beginning in the middle of the regular season. Former coaches, players and administrators are normally chosen to represent the Selection Committee while retired media members are also considered for spots on the committee. One key note would be that for any committee members that have ties to a specific school or conference will not be allowed to discuss nor vote on that school’s team. For example, if the Clemson Tigers were to go undefeated for most of the 2015 regular season and contend for a playoff spot, Dan Radakovich would not be allowed to make a call on Clemson because he serves as Clemson’s athletic director. This action is done to prevent any biases from developing in the selection process.

The current chairman of the Selection Committee is Jeff Long, who currently serves as the athletic director for the Arkansas Razorbacks. Other notable current members of the committee include Michael C. Gould, a former superintendent for the Air Force Academy, Tom Jernstedt, a former executive vice president of the NCAA, and former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese.

Each committee member chooses their top 4 teams and seeds them 1 through 4. 6 of the major bowl games will be given consideration for hosting the Semifinals and Finals of the College Football Playoff. These major bowl games include the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Peach Bowl. Pairings in the other major bowl games will also be determined by the committee. Multiple ballots are used as the foundation of the committee’s voting method, which can be compared to how the NCAA Basketball Tournament selection process is conducted. The committee has to reach a general consensus as to which teams will be ranked 1 through 25. The group of 13 members will get together in-person to debate the best teams as much as 10 times throughout the year. While the order of criteria is different for each committee member, all members generally use these categories below to come up with their selections of the best teams.

• Strength of Schedule
• Conference Champions
• Overall Win-Loss Records
• Head-to-Head Results Between Teams
• Key Injuries
• Weather Conditions

As a result of this change in postseason play, TV ratings dramatically increased from the final years of the BCS format. The College Football Playoff National Championship Game generated an 18.9 Nielsen rating, which was significantly better than the highest rating the BCS title game could generate, which was 16.1 in 2011.

200″ Sleeper Tractor

Big bunk semi in a color it would be hard not to notice, here is a custom extended sleeper that runs for “Southern Pride.” It was owned by the Bennetts. Some reports have it they still have the big yellow sleeper and others that they sold it to a SPT driver.

The bread and butter of the company “Southern Pride” is moving jet engines between airports across the US on an expedited basis. Sometimes the jobs are done on a moment’s notice. A lot of their tractors have big sleepers like this, reportedly. They’re based in San Diego, California.

The owners basically live in the trucks and run them across the country on irregular basis.

Apparently, a guy on HanksTruckForum took a ride with the owner of this “Southern Pride” custom sleeper. He said the owner sold his house to out it on the open road with his wife. The owner of the big yellow semi lives on the truck.

This is a big sleeper. Over 200″ some say.

Some have thought the weight of a big RV-like tractor might be an issue, but according to others, weight isn’t that big a deal — sayin its more what you can fit in a trailer rather than how much. But I think most would agree turning in something like this might be an issue. I guess moving jet engines is something like that.

Bill’s Dream Truck

This truck pictured is the dream truck of William McCullough, a guy whose photos of all kinds of big trucks taken over the past decades have recorded some real interesting variety from the range of big rigs and other trucks. (Visit HanksTruckPictures)

The webmaster — the guy who made the webpage for all Bill (William McCullough)’s photos just said he hopes Bill’s dream comes true.

After looking at as many trucks as Bill has, you’d think he’d have some idea of what looks good on a truck. What do you think? Does he? Do you like this “dream truck” design?

Looks like he’d have to take a conventional — here they used a 1953 Peterbilt — cut down the roof, bodywork in the sleeper with a bit of a flare behind the door so its “integrated,” round the hood, put in two straigh pipes with a sharp slant cut into the tops, get some classic looking fenders for the front wheels and a simple chrome one piece (or welded together into one peice) step / fender for the rears. A simple truck but a striking one. Guess that’s maybe what happens when a lot of experience gets crystallized.