Cross-Country Hauler’s Cab May Have All the Comforts of Home, Including Spouse
Being on the road hardly means roughing it anymore. Truckers now haul their own chandeliers, fax machines and microwave ovens along with the products they move to markets across the continent.
“You can just about put anything you want in there,” Steve Bombela said of the deluxe tractor cabs he helps to build at United Truck and Body in Des Moines.
Today’s longer cabs have sleeping quarters behind the front seat that can be furnished with just about anything a trucker desires.
Steve Blunt, 37, president of Steve Blunt Trucking Inc. here, owns “The Bird,” a customized Kenworth Aerodyne that is 70 feet long. He spent $70,000 getting The Bird outfitted just the way he wanted it.
Two 17-foot-long, air-brushed blue firebirds extend from the hood to the tip of the trailer. The sleeper has a bath with shower, fold-away tables, a central vacuum system and a kitchenette with sink, two-burner stove, microwave oven and custom cabinets. Both the cab and the sleeping compartment have refrigerators.
The compartment sleeps two. It also has remote-control color TV, a VCR and a cellular telephone.
A stereo system with 28 speakers provides the cruising music.
“You’ve got to have some tunes,” said Blunt, whose drivers haul boxed beef to New York City and Boston.
Of all his rig’s special equipment, he likes the shower best.
More and more husband-and-wife teams are buying big cabs since length restrictions were eased, according to Kenworth Mid-Iowa in Des Moines. About 10% of the company’s business is the big Kenworth Aerodyne.
The cab with sleeper costs $90,000 to $100,000, without extras, and is about the fanciest model sold. It also is the largest, at 110 inches by 96 inches. It comes with button-and-tuck interior upholstery, upper and lower bunks and one full-sized bed.
Bombela said that his deluxe cabs and sleepers are about $25,000, including shower, microwave, refrigerator, color TV, flush toilet, sink, oak cabinets, water tanks and generator. For a few dollars more, the company will install water beds.
“We put in showers, flush toilets, computers, fax machines . . . even chandeliers.”
Still, some truckers don’t like the big cabs, he said. A large tractor with all the extras can add 1,000 pounds to overall vehicle weight--and truckers must comply with weight limits. The deluxe rigs also are more difficult to drive because the wheel base is stretched to accommodate the sleepers, he said.
Paul Swesey, 27, of Panora, Iowa, spent $40,000 to customize his truck because, he says, he “likes the show.”
Swesey, who hauls household goods, spends more than nine months of the year on the road and sometimes is away from home for months at a time.
“I go into a neighborhood and all the people want to see it. They’ve never seen a truck like this one before,” he said.
His rig has a fax machine, telephone and modem, a computer with dual disk drives, a printer, a microwave, hot and cold running water, a portable toilet, a built-in alarm clock, a TV and a VCR with wireless remote. The central vacuum is “really slick” for keeping the interior neat, he said.
He also has a 5-kilowatt generator “so even when it’s 20 below, you can stay nice and warm without idling the engine,” he said.
