It’s a Boudoir, It’s a Limousine, It’s a--Truck
Two attractive women in tight, low-cut sequined gowns stood in front, and they were getting as much attention as you’d expect. It was Thursday at the International Trucking Show at the Anaheim Convention Center, where there were more truckers per square foot than on an interstate.
But the real object of their desires was parked behind the women--a jet-black, Class A (as in very big), custom-built, cross-country tractor, the answer to a trucker’s dreams.
It’s built to roll, of course, with its Eaton EFA-12F4 30” setback front axle, its Spicer 15 1/2-inch dampened ceramic clutch, and its Cummins NTC 444-horsepower engine with Phillips Zero Start starting aid.
Just look at it.
Everything on the outside is a smooth, shiny black--not a square inch of chrome anywhere.
Inside, the cab looks like it was designed by Hugh Hefner: gray pigskin, except for black velveteen where a body would meet the upholstery. The cellular telephone, the AM/FM cassette deck, the radar detector and, of course, the CB radio are within easy reach. Air conditioned? Of course.
A doorway leads to the rear, where the “Elite Suite,” a second pigskin-and-velveteen cab, has enough standing room for a 6-foot, 3-inch trucker.
In this mini-boudoir are a refrigerator, a microwave oven, a sink with water supply, a closet, a dining table, a couch that converts to a double bed, stereo speakers and a color TV. By the bed is a control panel for starting up the engine on cold mornings without getting up.
Price: $124,000, including monogrammed sheets.
But it’s not for sale.
The truck, christened the “Midnight Star,” was built in September by Western Star Trucks of Kelowna, British Columbia, which custom-builds trucks and wants to attract more business in the United States. After a nine-month promotional tour of the United States, the truck was given away Thursday to an independent owner-operator from Holley, N.Y.
Steve Lebeck, 29, and his wife Sue, 27, were at the trucking show Thursday for the ceremonial presentation of the keys. Lebeck had seen the truck when it stopped in New York and won the giveaway contest after entering five times.
“My first opinion of the truck was a little mixed,” Lebeck said Thursday. “It’s so radical. I like chrome. My other truck is chrome from one end to the other. You can see yourself in my trailer.”
“He’s always out there polishing it,” Sue Lebeck said.
“Customers like to see good equipment come into the yard,” he said.
And there’s another reason, Steve Lebeck said: He loves trucks. His father drove trucks for 50 years, and “you can’t help loving them when you’re around them that much.”
Since he added a sleeping compartment to his other truck, there’s hardly any reason to get out of it when you’re on the road, he said. “I haven’t been in a motel since.”
He drives through Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario delivering bagged cement, and now he must decide whether there’s enough business two keep two trucks going. He bought his other truck just two years ago, a Volvo. (“We’re yuppie truckers,” Sue Lebeck said.)
The Lebecks had to float a $30,000 loan to pay the taxes on their free truck before they received title to it, they said. Steve Lebeck said he may sell his Volvo, which carries a $2,000 monthly loan payment, or he may hire a driver and keep it working.
“My dream is to someday sit behind a desk and go out and drive when I feel like it,” he said. “This could be a nice start.”
