Augusta, Georgia-headquartered Cadle Trucking owner Ben Cadle, longtime agent for Bennett Motor Express, spec'd out this unit in 2023 to his liking, ordering the rig from Fitzgerald Peterbilt in Crossville, Tennessee. It's powered by the Paccar MX-13 motor, he said, hooked to a brand-new polished-out Dorsey flatbed that Cadle's parallel Trelco Trailers business, leasing and selling trailers, showcased at the Large Cars and Guitars truck show in Kodak, Tennessee, in May.
It's the third 13-liter Paccar motor Cadle's owned, having good luck with them generally. "I was getting excellent fuel mileage coming up here," he said during the Large Cars event. "It was getting ... a little over 10 miles to the gallon," he said.
Small fleet owner Ben Cadle
Cadle took delivery of it in August last year, and generally is treating it less like a daily workhorse than his personal truck. Between August and May, he'd hauled some loads in it, yet put on just 16,000 total miles in the unit, lightly customized to his liking with some assist from Semi Casual, the Fitzgerald-affiliated custom shop we also caught up with at Large Cars with their twin custom 589 Petes.
[Related: Let your truck shine: Enter Overdrive's Pride & Polish competition]
The 48-foot Dorsey flatbed is meant to showcase Cadle's Trelco Trailers relationship with the manufacturer. Penny lights featured on it in some areas led Cadle to a few design decisions with bright cab panels on the tractor, as well as its impressive deckplate.
Semi Casual initially built this deckplate for a different owner, Cadle said, yet the project was shelved before being completed. The lights running along its sides Cadle had them add to extend similar lights running along lower bright panels under the sleeper. Originally, Cadle had thought to add lighting along the side of the frame, yet he came away satisfied with this treatment, given "you can really see" the lights when the truck is rolling at night, he said.
Check out plenty more in the way of customization, from painted-top breather treatments, interior adds of a refrigerator/microwave combo and plenty views of the Dorsey flatbed and tractor in the video up top.
The truck's motto along the back is something of a jokey take-off on a common slogan among custom-car enthusiasts, shown on the sleeper's back window. (Cadle hauled some custom cars himself out to the annual SEMA show last year out West, he said.)
[Related: No turning back: New era for direct freight]
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Ben Cadle: And I couldn't think of a name for the truck. I kept coming up with all kind of stupid names and nobody liked it. And then all of a sudden, after I got the truck, I just thought about it. I saw a truck. A friend of mine had “pimpin’ ain't easy” on the back of it, and I just.
Something crossed my mind, “Pimpin’ made easy.”
My name is Ben Cadle. We're an agent for Bennett Motor Express for at least a minute. We have Cadle Trucking and Trelco Trailers in which we sell and lease trailers. And during Covid, we got rid of a lot of trucks and downsized. And so, like, I said. So me and my wife, she likes purple and I green, so you can see who won that battle. All the other trucks are already green.
This is built in August last year, and yeah, here we are in May and almost at 16,000.
That's about 16,000 miles put on in the year. Went out to Las Vegas to Sema. I got a car hauler carrier. We took some cars out there. I was getting excellent fuel mileage coming up here. It was getting almost a little over ten miles to the gallon. Yeah, well, I mean, that's why I like the Paccar.
It's the third one we've had and we've had good luck with the other two. This one doesn’t have enough miles to tell on it.
I ordered the truck from Fitzgerald. I didn't know it at the time, but I saw a buddy of mine who had a flattop and had a refrigerator microwave combo in the truck. And so I asked them, could they do it? And they, they they got it from Iowa Customs. And they put it in there. So that's the only thing's been done inside. I wanted to keep it kind of original.
And the reason I got a refrigerator and microwave is. My wife’s got allergy. So she goes with me. She can't just get food everywhere.
Outside, I painted the top of the breathers. They wouldn't paint them at the factory like that. So I took them off and topped them off just to make it something different.
The panels. I didn't originally want the penny lights. Yeah, because I wanted to kind of keep it retro I ordered it with the West Coast mirrors, the old filters and old style muffler guards. And I wanted an old style Peterbilt light from the 90s or 80s. But then when I got my flatbed, they had penny lights in it, and I said, wait a minute, then angle.
And then the deck. I had an idea for the deck, Fitzgerald had the idea of, they had a deck laying around that they didn't use. Somebody else had bought it and then, anyway, it had been laying in the shop, he said, for three years, and he didn't know what he was going to do with it. And then I told him I wanted that, and I said, but I really wanted lights on the side.
So we kind of came down here to put the lights up like that. And, it looks pretty cool. It's all right. I didn't think you would be able to see them but you can really see them there. Other than that, it's pretty much stock. I ordered it with double locking readers, because, you know, we still do flatbed and get off-site sometimes, right?
I did get stuck with this truck already. I had to go to New York. I wouldn't want to go in the wintertime. But I looked up and it was snowing. So I got up there and got back. But it was on a Saturday where I could get away, so I left on a Thursday night. I went up there to the job site, and I tried for two hours to get in this job site and, I just could not get the trailer there where they wanted.
I had to drop a trailer off. Wow. I couldn't get it in. And I've been driving 30 years, and I told them, “look, I can't get it.” I said, “I can't, I'm telling you.” I said, “I'll try. I'll try to look, you know, I can't.” And I tried to, I got stuck.
I said, “you need a daycab.” They called a crane. Called a daycab to come over there. And he almost didn't get it, but they said they finally got it in.
