This month’s creation was built for Jeff Jarzynski of Minnesota-based Muska Electric. An employee-owned electrical contracting company, Muska has been serving customers in Minnesota and Wisconsin since 1919. Jeff, among other things, manages their 75-vehicle fleet of cars, pickups and trucks – and does some driving and delivery, too. As a longtime friend and customer, Clint really enjoyed doing this “different” kind of truck for Jeff and Muska Electric.
Born in 1980, Jeff is the third child of four from his parents, Mike & Paula Jarzynski – they have been married since 1968. His dad retired as an engineer for 3M and his mom is retired from Sears. Jeff’s grandpa sailed the Great Lakes early in life then worked on the ore docks in Superior, Wisconsin, providing for his wife and six children until he retired. Jeff regrets not asking more questions while his grandpa was alive, because he now has a fascination with the history of those old big ships, and even has a pair of Kahlenberg Marine Air Horns, in honor of his grandpa, on his custom pickup.
Being a gear-head and always looking for something different, after graduating from high school in 1998, instead of going to automobile mechanic school, Jeff headed to a technical college in St. Paul, Minnesota, to pursue a career in heavy truck repair. A year later, while still in school, he landed a job at Metro Gravel. After a little on-the-job training, he worked the evening shift while still attending school. After graduating in 2000, he moved to regular day hours. The following year, tired of being dirty, he bought his first truck – a yellow 1989 Peterbilt 379 daycab with a Cat 3406B – and leased on at Metro.
After running that yellow day cab for about a year, he sold it and bought a white 2000 Pete 379 with black fenders, powered by a 550-hp Cat 3406E hooked to an 18-speed. He ran that truck until 2003 when he ordered a new black and yellow 2004 Peterbilt 379 long hood from Clint. Featuring a very early C-15 Accert, an 18-speed, 3.23 full locking rears and low LowAir leaf with a car hauler axle, Jeff also shaved all the emblems, installed homemade 10-inch stacks, and chopped the air cleaners. This was his favorite truck. In October 2005, tired of being gone, he sold the truck and went back to Metro, where he worked in the shop and drove a big multi-axle dump truck.
Ten years later, in 2015, a friend mentioned to Jeff that Muska Electric was looking for a guy like him to manage their equipment and drive trucks. Jeff applied for the job and got it – and he couldn’t be happier (like Clint, he loves his job). When the company decided they needed a bigger delivery truck, they let Jeff figure out what would work best. He called Clint and the two eventually decided to go with a dry box straight truck with a curtain on just one side.
The truck is a 2017 Model 337 with a Model 348 front bumper, a manual transmission (Jeff likes to shift), a custom drop visor installed by the guys in the body shop, dual fuel tanks and battery boxes under both doors, and a pair of dummy straight pipes, mounted by Charlie in the service department. The truck and box are painted to match the Muska company colors and lettered like a big billboard. The truck also has a liftgate on the back that doesn’t fold under because the truck is equipped with a hitch to pull a trailer when they get a really big job. Clint’s dad also helped him a bunch on this project.
Jeff really enjoys odd stuff, and the bigger the better! He has an eccentric collection of cool things that includes “Bessie” – a custom 1989 Chevy pickup. It was a daily driver for years, and then he bagged it, swapped the gas engine with a 453T Detroit diesel with twin turbos sticking out of the hood, installed a two-stick Quadraplex Mack transmission and chopped the top, among other things. Keep in mind, Jeff does his own work – and he can be very ambitious.
Married to his wife Deanna for 12 years, the couple has been together for 18 years and has four children – Josh (16), Joe (13), Genevieve (4) and Vivienne, who was just born on “10-4 Day” (October 4th) of last year (Joe can be seen with Jeff in the picture). Jeff Jarzynski likes “different” things, and this latest straight truck, is certainly something different. As Clint put it, “Something different, something new, something practical, something blue!”
