The following story was originally penned in 2016 by the most enthusiastic among trucking-culture enthusiasts, former "American Trucker" television series host and producer Robb Mariani, about a history-making event that year. It was updated slightly from its original form in June 2021 as part of Overdrive's 60th-anniversary celebration and its series of lookbacks at trucking history.
Contemporary trucking seems about a million miles away from what trucking was even a decade ago, much less 50 years or so. But on a day in 2016 in Lincolnton, North Carolina, the past met the present as vintage truck owners got together to fellowship and pay homage to the equipment of yesteryear, much of it still in hardworking order today. While that wasn’t particularly unique – it happens all around the country at a myriad of truck shows all summer long every year – what was special about that September day in Lincolnton was that five of the most famous trucks of the 1970s appeared for the first time together atop a hill on small fleet owner Brad Wike’s 45-acre farm, site of the annual Southern Classic Truck Show.
That “Hollywood Hill” made history of a kind, and transported those in attendance back to that seemingly far-off place, where the very mention of an ELD to a driver would have seemed as foreign as finding a Scania in the Schneider fleet. There we were in 2016, with time marching forward as inexorably as it is today – with the vast majority of modern trucks looking like an epidemic of inbreeding, and with good reason. Fuel economy and safety dominate the concerns of today’s manufacturers. Most every hallmark of what made each truck manufacturer distinctive in the past (COE or conventional cab, fenders, breathers, grab rails, fuel tanks, etc.) are all but indistinguishable. Most every model is an aero-swept uni-truck. It had taken a short 20 to 30 years for the past “trucks-of-the-future” concepts to reach the new standard.
I grew up in the 1970s and ’80s. I can recall traveling in my family’s motor home all over these United States. My passion for semi trucks permeated every family member, especially when we hit the road. I started a game with my older brother back then — it quickly spread to the rest of my family on our long trips. I would be glued to the window, and as a truck on the opposite side of highway would come into the smallest of views on the horizon, I would process what brand and model truck it was. And as quickly as I would determine it — “K-100, double bunk!”, “359 Pete, with a Kysor!” — the winner was determined ...
I won virtually every time — and for good reason, too, considering the advantage I had with my driver grandpa’s subscription to Overdrive magazine. I had a comprehensive design database that I studied nearly every day of my life. Overdrive’s “Tractor Dissection,” “Tractor of the Month” or “Fleet of the Month” features were my study guide, not to mention “Model of the Month” — I built about every 1/25 scale semi model ever sold! Building those scale truck models with all of the details really rigged the game.
