COVER FEATURE - FEBRUARY 2008
COWBOY CADILLAC
RYAN HOOTEN’S WESTERN-THEMED PETERBILT
By Daniel J. Linss - Editor
There are few people in this world that know what they want to do for a living before they even get out of high school. Ryan Hooten of Santa Ynez, California is one of them. The 34 year old Ventura County native is the owner and operator of Ryan’s Feed and Trucking, a hay sales and delivery service based on California’s golden Central Coast. Ryan has been a hard working trucker all his life and has seen much success, but his latest accomplishment is his biggest and best yet. He recently completed a full custom rebuild of his 1995 Peterbilt 379 and gave the interior a unique western theme, which compliments his hay business and his love for rodeo and horses.
Ryan is the son of Harvey Hooten, a rancher that raised Ryan, his brother Harvey Jr. and sister Keri in Oak View, California. Harvey had run a feedlot in Hanford, California before moving his family to Oak View where he raised cattle and grew hay. Sometimes he would grow more hay than he could feed to his own cattle, and would occasionally sell hay to local ranchers and horse owners. As his hay-laden truck became a common sight in the area, Harvey’s hay hauling evolved into a lucrative business.
The Hooten’s trucks were always functional, not fancy. Ryan has vivid memories of the big “bull wagons” coming to their ranch to pickup and deliver cattle. He would sit on the fence in amazement and admire their size and strength, thinking, “I am going to own one of those someday.” Working trucks had made an impression on him – but once he got his first close look at a tricked-out, fancy truck he was hooked for life.
Ryan’s uncle was a cross-country trucker that came to Oak View once a month. Ryan would help his uncle wash his truck, and then got in the habit of washing his dad’s own vehicles after every delivery. Ryan would beg his dad to fix up his trucks, but Harvey’s reply was always, “Chrome don’t make you money.” Ryan convinced his dad to purchase some chrome nut covers just so that he would have something to polish and shine. He even made a deal with a local junk yard owner on a chrome pipe he just had to have.
By age 15, Ryan was working for several local hay haulers loading, delivering and stacking bales. By age 17, he was driving and delivering for himself, his father and Apache Hay. His pride in being professional and his knowledge of the business from the ground up showed in his work. Harvey had taught him to stack the hay properly, with the smooth sides out. To this day, Ryan carefully stacks every load properly, and delivers 500-800 bales of hay a week. An old-timer once told Ryan, “The squeeze killed the hay hauling industry.” Ryan admits that hauling hay used to be a specialty deal that required physical strength and an intimate knowledge of the business. Today, it is more cutthroat, he says. The days of the big boom loaders are gone, and the art of hand stacking hay is quickly becoming lost.
The first truck Ryan ever bought was a 1977 Kenworth conventional. The truck was pretty used up by the time Ryan got it, so he rebuilt the motor, bought new fuel tanks and added a bit of chrome. The truck, much like his father’s vehicles, was a simple working truck. He did not have the time or resources to get it looking like the classy trucks he so admired. Later, when he needed a truck with a sleeper, he sold the old Kenworth daycab.
After a few years in a business partnership that taught him a lot but ultimately did not pan out, Ryan moved to Santa Ynez and went to work for himself. At that time, he purchased a used 1995 Peterbilt 379 that was stock, but very clean. The truck had a 3406E Cat with about 600,000 miles already on it, but it looked and ran great. In fact, it is the very same truck featured on this month’s cover/centerfold and these pages (prior to the major overhaul it recently received). The truck was painted all Black Cherry and the frame was just regular black. Ryan added a drop visor, pulled the horns from the roof, added two more cab lights and changed the exhaust. The truck stayed this way until December of 2006. At that point, the engine needed some work and Ryan was contemplating buying a new truck to replace it. Ryan was not excited about Peterbilt’s new 389, so he decided to keep the old truck and fix her up. Originally, his plan was to just replace the engine and have the truck repainted, but, as these things often go, his simple “freshen it up” idea quickly morphed into a full custom rebuild.
Taking advantage of the slow season, Ryan dropped the truck off at Pee Wee’s Paint & Body in Bakersfield, California the day after Christmas (2006) and the long process of transforming this tired truck into a strong, show-worthy ride began. While at the paint shop, much was done to the truck before it was actually painted including converting it into a Unibilt cab and sleeper and adding air-ride, cutting a window in the back of the sleeper, shaving the door handles, and replacing the old side windows and vents with one-piece windows. Pee Wee also cleaned up the frame and filled some holes, hid the hood latches, and sandblasted the entire frame and rear end. After a few fresh coats of Black Cherry were sprayed on the truck, the frame, fenders and tank straps were painted Metallic Maroon and then ghost flames were added to the fenders. Once the painting was done, they installed a few new accessories. The original grille was replaced with a new-style punched oval grille, Double JJ headlight brackets and double round headlights were installed, and two more cab lights were added (for a total of nine).
After five long months, the truck left Pee Wee’s place and headed to Quinn Company in Bakersfield for its new motor. While the truck was at the paint shop, Ryan had the folks at Custom Truck in Coos Bay, Oregon build him a brand new Caterpillar C-16 with extra torque and 625 horsepower. Once the truck arrived at Quinn, it didn’t take long for Opie to pull out the old engine and drop in the new one. While at Quinn, Ryan also had them go through everything and rebuild the transmission. After three weeks at Quinn, Ryan took the truck home and had Tim at Fastripe paint the colorful stripes and graphics. After that, Ryan took it back to Pee Wee’s for a few final coats of clear. But it still wasn’t finished – it had no interior!
Ryan knew exactly what he wanted to do inside the cab, but it took him a while to find a shop that could handle the job. The truck ended up at Jack’s Upholstery in Santa Maria, California. It took them about ten days to do the job, but once completed, the interior looked fantastic. Using cowhides and ostrich skins for the door panels and headliner, in addition to some custom leather work and many fancy “concho” buttons, the interior was given a truly unique western theme. After that, Ryan installed a natural-colored wood strip floor, Bostrom leather seats, a polished aluminum billet steering wheel and armrests, a stainless steel overhead console and chrome steering column cover. To finish up the inside, Ryan took the truck to The Design Group in Bakersfield where they installed a flat-screen television and a booming sound system.
Back at home, Ryan spent a few more weeks adding all of the final chrome and stainless accessories including new light bars, lights, battery boxes, wheels and tires, quarter fenders, deck plating, bumper and mud flaps. When it was all finished, people were surprised to see it back on the road – many thought it would never be done! And after seven months of waiting, you can understand their thinking. The truck made its debut at a show in Porterville, California, where it was awarded Best of Show. Ryan hopes to take it to a few of the bigger truck shows this year, like maybe Louisville, Las Vegas or Dallas, but no plans have been finalized as of yet. We hope that he can bring it out to the show in Kentucky this March and show a little West Coast representation back there.
Working for himself has been a great experience and gives Ryan the freedom to choose his own schedule. “I don’t care to be away from home all the time,” Ryan commented. Traveling to Oregon, Utah, Arizona and Nevada to pick up hay for resale on California’s Central Coast means that Ryan can be home most nights to practice his roping and cutting skills and spend time with his wife, DeeDee. The pair is a good team, often roping together and spending time with their quarter horses. When Ryan has local deliveries, DeeDee can be seen following his rig with the hay squeeze!
As for the distant future, Ryan has a vision to purchase an older cabover truck to fix up, but in the more near future, he is preparing to become a father. Having recently found out that DeeDee is pregnant with their first child and due in June, Ryan is very excited. Ryan and DeeDee have been together for eight years, but were just finally married a little over a year ago. DeeDee not only helps out with the hay business, but she also owns a tanning salon in town. Ryan knows that he will never become a rich man driving a truck, but he loves what he does and wouldn’t have it any other way. “If I won millions in the Lottery today, I’d still be out trucking tomorrow,” said Ryan. “As long as I can provide for my family and pretty much do whatever I want, whenever I want, I am happy with that,” he added.
We’d like to thank Ryan for allowing us to come out to Santa Ynez and spend the day taking pictures of him and his truck. Most of the photos were shot at the C.I. Ranch a few miles down the road from Ryan’s house. We would like to thank John Solem of the C.I. Land & Cattle Company for allowing us to wander around their thousands of acres and take our pictures. We even had one big bull mosey on over to Ryan’s rig to snack on some hay while we were still shooting (see photo). One more big “thank you” goes out to Christina Barnes, who put much of this article together when we told Ryan that we needed more information before we made a decision about putting his truck on our cover. The compelling story she told about Ryan, in addition to his flawless rig, made our decision easy.