Plain White T-Shirt

Once again, it was my fun time of the year, because this month’s creation was built to be a display truck for KC Pete at our annual farm show.  I love my job.  Every year we get to build something special for the show.  Unfortunately, our dealership is still on allocation, so we were not able to order a special truck to build for the show.  Last fall we had a customer that wasn’t able to take his new truck on order, and that truck was a Peterbilt 567 with a small sleeper.  We couldn’t change the model, but we were able to make changes to get it to a more exciting level of custom for our booth display.

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My mom always told me and my brother and sister growing up, “Do the best with what you get, and don’t worry about what you don’t.”  So, this year we came up with a few ideas on the 567 pictured here.  Peterbilt is going through a cab change in 2024, so why not show that there can be cool after the change.  MPB stands for Most Popular Brand, and I would say that describes Peterbilt over the years, so we had nicknamed this build MPB – but in my mind, it stood for “Making People Believe” there is some cool in this new body style.

Because the truck was so different than what we usually do, I brought my wife by the shop to show it to her and she said it looked like a “Plain White T-shirt” – so that became its new name from then on.  The truck is a 2023 Peterbilt 567 with a 44” flat top, a 565-hp X15 Cummins with 2,050 torque, an 18 speed, full locking differentials, and a modest wheelbase.  It also has Low Low air ride, a car-hauler front axle, and is loaded with all the top-of-the-line stuff inside.

When the truck showed up last fall, it just sat here, because we were all working on customer trucks.  I had made a dream list of things to do to it, but no one was interested in seeing the list, so I just started having Charles gather some parts for me.  I talked Ross and Kevin out in our body shop into helping me on the truck’s hood modifications, but because the hood is made of Metton (a super strong plastic-like material) and not fiberglass, it was a learning lesson to work with it.  What seemed like an easy change, wasn’t easy at all.  Thankfully, we had a spare crashed hood just laying around, so Kevin was able to extract some good skin grafts from it.

The truck lived in Kevin’s bay for quite a while, and everyone who saw it asked, “What’s this going to be?”  Tyler and Perry in the service department were kind enough to volunteer to help work on some of the stuff, because the farm show was approaching fast.  Charlie was in charge of the majority of the project, and with help from a lot of friends, we gathered a few more pieces.  I called Stuart at NorCal Customs in California, and he was excited to see how the 567 would look with his air ride on it.  Then, I called my old friend and retired coworker Lee Black and asked him to pick up some parts and bring them back to KC.  He responded by saying, “Farm show time, love it.  Let me know what I can do.”

As the project began to build some steam, I also reached out to my close friend Moose, who was my main guy for years.  His response was, “Whatever you need, Clint.  I got you.”  Alex shipped me a couple elbows and loose clamps, and we made some new friends that helped out as well, Phil and Seth.  Jimmy got me a light bar, Chris and Jake helped with drawings, along with fabricating a few off-the-wall parts, Mike installed the NorCal air ride, Cody fixed the grill and, on the last couple days, helped Charlie and Tyler finished it up.  Bub, Ronnie, and Storm helped me with the visor idea and all the other little extra last-minute additions, and “Pat the Painter” painted everything.

I can’t thank the KC Peterbilt crew and all my friends enough for their help making this dream come true (even though most say my “dreams” are their nightmares).  Thanks to my dad for doing some last minute welding, too.  I hope people like this unique truck, and all the subtle things we did to it.  I think it’s fair to say the new cab is going to be a doable deal.

Currently, we still have a few parts to finish that didn’t get done before the farm show, but because we are all busy, we haven’t pulled it back into the shop to finish it – but, hopefully, we will soon.  I have a couple people interested in buying this super custom “Plain White T-shirt” after we finish it, but if none of those buyers pan out, she will go up for sale.  If you want to throw your hat into the ring, give me a call at KC Peterbilt.