Tomah, Wisconsin-based Bill Rethwisch with his custom truck builds is no stranger to the pages of Overdrive, having been featured numerous times a decade or more ago for big wins in Overdrive’s Pride & Polish competition, Shell Rotella SuperRigs events and others.
Rethwisch of late has taken a step back from the national truck show circuit but has continued to build quality trucks for his small fleet’s drivers. His sons, ages 17 and 12, are starting to get the truck-building bug, too.
"My boys are taking over now," Rethwisch said. "My two sons are 12 and 17, and I'm just kind of helping them. I'm done doing it myself, but I like to help them."
At the Stars, Stripes and White Lines Truck Show, hosted by the Bennett Family of Companies in the fall of 2024 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Rethwisch showed off his fleet’s newest build, a 2023 Peterbilt 389 that he just got back from Semi Casual, the Fitzgerald-affiliated custom shop. After that show, the truck was brought into Rethwisch’s fuel-hauling Rethwisch Transport business to be put to work.
The fleet hauls fuel in the Upper Midwest, as well as lubricants all over the United States, Mexico and Canada. Rethwisch said business has mostly been strong up until most recently when he’s run into other carriers hauling products for lower rates, bringing his rates down. “I think that kind of everybody in this industry right now is dealing with this,” he noted.
Unlike many of his custom trucks, this one wasn’t ordered specifically for Rethwisch, it just “came in on the lot,” he said. The Spanish Gold paint scheme caught his eye and he decided to purchase the unit.
[Related: 2013 National Champion, Working Combo: Bill Rethwisch’s 2012 Peterbilt 389 and Polar tanker]
“We thought we were just going to put some stainless on it and go to work with it,” he said.
However, after talking to the driver who's going to be in the truck, "He liked the idea of doing some custom pinstriping, hand pinstriping, doing the handle on the door and everything,” Rethwisch said. That pinstriping is shown here around the Peterbilt logo on the hood, as well as around the fuel cap and sleeper door handle in the photo below.
He sent the truck to Semi Casual, “and they kind of put their flair on it and kind of got what we wanted to have on it.”
At the time of the truck show in Atlanta on Nov. 1-2, he had just picked up the rig and brought it straight to the show from Semi Casual’s shop in Crossville, Tennessee. A new tanker was waiting for it back in Wisconsin, which Rethwisch said would make it “a nice, matched unit.”
Rethwisch said his goal with this truck was to keep it “a little plain,” with the thought that “clean is cool on this one. We’ve gone over the top on other ones before, but I feel like this is just a nice, clean, cool truck to get to drive every day.”
Stainless half-fenders over the rear axles stand out against the truck's black frame.
[Related: Bill Rethwisch wins back-to-back SuperRigs titles, takes 2014’s with ’13 Pete]
Under the hood, it features a 565-hp Cummins with an 18-speed and 3.42 rears with full lockers. It sits on a 295-inch wheelbase, “so it’s pretty well set up for the way we like to set our trucks up.”
The sleeper is a 63-inch flattop, a look he’s always liked for his tanker-pulling tractors.
The truck as shown here is pretty much how Rethwisch planned to keep it, with the exception of putting a CB in it, adding a wet kit “so we can load and unload our trailers easily,” and taking off the steps to put on stainless steel covers -- “just our normal stuff,” he noted.
On the back of the 63-inch flattop sleeper, the truck's nickname -- and a nod to Rethwisch's entire fuel-hauling fleet -- "Haulin Gas with Class."
[Related: Retired owner-op's 1968 Peterbilt 358A build makes triumphant run]
Find plenty more views of the rig in the video up top, and for more videos and custom-equipment features delivered to your email inbox, subscribe to Overdrive's weekly Custom Rigs newsletter via this link.
Bill Rethwisch: I'm Bill Rethwisch. My business name is Rethwisch Transport, and we're based out of Tomah, Wisconsin. We’re a fuel hauler up in the upper Midwest, as well as we do lubricants all over the United States and working on, parts of Mexico and Canada.
Matt Cole: All right, then, how long have you owned the company? When did you start?
Rethwisch: In 2009.
Cole: You know, people that have been following Overdrive for a while are probably familiar with your name from showt rucks back in, you know, decade or so ago, have you been doing show trucks in the meantime, or are you kind of get back into it now?
Rethwisch: Oh, no. We kept doing, we just haven't been going all over the country like we were kind of.
My boys are taking over now, so my two sons are 12 and 17, and I'm just kind of helping them. Yeah, I'm done doing that myself, but I like to help them.
Cole: Awesome. All right, well, tell me about this truck.
Rethwisch: So this truck here, actually, we didn't order this one. It came in on the lot, and I really like the color.
The Spanish Gold, it's called. And, we took it home, but now we're just going to put some stainless on and go to work with it. And then, we kind of got talking to the driver. That's going to get it. He liked the idea of doing some of the hand pinstriping doing the hand on the door and everything, so he sent it back down to semi casual in Tennessee, and they kind of put their flair on it and kind of got it what we wanted to have on it.
And so now we're able to pick it up a couple days ago and we're, excited to get it back home, get to work, and we have a new trailer waiting for it. So be a nice match unit. We'll put the name on the trailer and everything and it'll be great. And the only thing we're going to do, we're going to add is, well, we'll take the steps off and put stainless covers on there and, just our normal stuff, get the CB and get our wet kit on it so we can load and unload our trailers easily and, that's about all we're going to be doing with the drivers excited to get it. So we're excited to give it to them. We kind of kept it a little bit plain on this one, but I thought maybe clean is cool on this one. We've gone over the top on other ones before, but I feel like this is just a nice, clean, cool truck to get to drive every day.
It's got a 565 Cummins. It's got an 18-speed transmission and 3.42 rear ends and full lockers. It's 295 wheelbase. So it's pretty well set up for the way we like to set our trucks up. The 63-inch flat top. And, some of our trucks, we've gone to the stand-up sleepers, but I still like the flat top. Look on the tankers.
