LEADER OF THE PACK
THE LATEST PROJECT FROM CLINT MOORE
This months “creation” was built for Dennis Henderson (47) of Scranton, Kansas. Growing up on a farm, Dennis started trucking when he was just a kid and has owned several rigs over the years. Today, he runs eight nice trucks and fourteen trailers - and the last six of these trucks were ordered through Clint. All of Dennis’ trucks are painted the same colors except for his latest rig, the rare Legacy edition featured here, which was mistakenly painted the wrong color.
Dennis’ mother Shirley has always been one tough lady. She not only ran a hay farm, but up until the time Dennis turned 22, she also did all of the trucking. At that point, Dennis took over the trucking responsibilities. He drove for his mom until he was 25 and then took a railroad job. Six months later he went back to trucking. After being burned by a few dishonest employers, he decided to buy his mom out of the hay trucking portion of her farming business and purchased his first truck - a 1979 cabover Kenworth.
Not wanting to have any problems with that first truck, Dennis immediately took it in to the repair shop and had the motor and transmission rebuilt - and 500 miles later, the rear-end went out. “Go figure,” he said. His next truck was a sweet 1984 Peterbilt 359 painted black with red fenders. Featuring a 63-inch flattop and a 400 Cummins, “Blacky” is still part of his current fleet and is used from time to time as a spare truck. In 1984 Dennis leased on to Rusty Weekly for three years, hauling precast concrete. He then got his own authority and started hauling concrete boxes, manholes and pipe for an outfit called Pretech, which he still hauls for today (he also still hauls hay for his mom).
Several years later, Dennis bought his next truck - a nice (used) 1994 Pete 379 Extended Hood with a 48-inch flattop. That would be the last truck that he would purchase without Clint’s help. Since then he has bought five more 379 daycabs with extended hoods painted white with candy apple red tops and fenders. He even had the 1994 repainted to match the rest a few years back. When Clint found out that the dealership he works for was going to get eight Legacy edition trucks from Peterbilt, he ordered one for Dennis at his request - and, of course, it was going to be painted like all the rest but with some “old school” stripes from a 1973 brochure.
Dennis was offered the opportunity to travel to the Peterbilt plant in Denton, Texas to watch his truck get built, and on the way home he called Clint to tell him that the truck was ordered with the wrong color of red - it was actually ordered with a dark maroon color. Clint thought he was kidding, but when he realized that Dennis was not joking, he offered to repaint the truck when he got it back to Kansas, to which Dennis replied, “I like the color. Maybe I should have you paint all of my other trucks and trailers that color.” For a moment, Clint’s heart just about stopped, but then Dennis laughed and said, “The truck is beautiful, and it stands out as the leader of the pack in my fleet - we won’t change a thing.”
The very rare Legacy Edition 379 Peterbilt (#487 of 1,000 made) was ordered with a 625 Cat and a factory two-stick setup. Featuring an RTLO20918B transmission and 4-speed manual auxiliary, the rig also has 3:73 ratio full locking differentials, 7-inch dual factory pipes and a long 276-inch wheelbase. Once the truck arrived at the shop, Clint installed one of his custom bowtie visors, some extra cab lights, a shox box, a rear light bar, Hogebuilt full fenders, stainless steel cab and sleeper extensions and breather lights. Dennis also had his tanks wrapped with stainless and Clint’s dad chopped the air cleaner tops.
After taking the rig on a few trips, Dennis decided that he did not like the seats and wanted to replace them with some Wide Rides, but he did not want to lose the cool “Legacy” logo stitched into the factory seats. Clint called the factory and got the embroidery pattern, the thread counts and the colors of that logo and then had the new seats stitched to match the originals. When Clint installed the new seats, he slid them back five inches so Dennis could have more leg room.
The color of this truck may not have been ordered correctly, and it may not be driven very often (it is a year old and has less than 3,000 miles on it), but when it does hit the road, it sure looks good. And it wasn’t until the truck was done and cleaned up that Clint finally stepped back and realized that this rare truck was truly “The Leader of the Pack” for Dennis Henderson’s fleet. And then he thought, “Man, what a ride!”