COVER FEATURE - MAY 2009
IN MEMORY OF FAYE
“Big Bad John” Gets a Complete Makeover
By Daniel J. Linss - Editor
It was December of 1961 when Dale Blevins first spotted a tandem axle Autocar dump truck working on the Eufaula Dam in Oklahoma. Everyone called the truck “Big Dog” because whenever anyone got stuck, they would call the Autocar to pull them out. After scrapping up $2,200 to buy it, Dale became the proud owner of his first diesel truck. Almost 50 years later, that 1942 Autocar still belongs to Dale, although now it looks nothing like it did when he first bought it back in 1961. Having recently undergone a complete rebuild by the guys at Peterbilt of Joplin, this old truck was more than just revitalized – it was totally tricked-out. And it was all done in the memory of Dale’s late wife, Faye.
Beginning life in California, Dale and his brother always seemed to find trouble. Their father had a construction business in California, but when he caught his two boys hitchhiking to the beach he decided that it was time to move them out of the big city. In 1944, Dale’s family moved to a small farm in Missouri and his father went to work in the coal mines. Later, when that wasn’t working out too well, Dale’s father went into the gravel and paving business and Blevins Asphalt was born in 1948. Over the years, the company flourished as it was awarded several government contracts to pave or chip seal the many dirt roads in their area.
Dale worked and/or owned the company for 52 years before finally retiring and passing it on to his daughters and son-in-laws. He calls himself “retired” but he still gets up every day and pushes dirt around with his dozer – he just doesn’t get paid to do it anymore. Truth is, ever since his beloved wife Faye passed away, he doesn’t have much else to do. Besides, he’d rather do something useful with his time than just sit around the house and feel sorry for himself. Dale met Faye at a Fall Festival in Missouri – they dated for eight weeks and then got married. They were together for 52 years. After struggling with Parkinson’s disease, she got cancer. Faye passed away in June of 2007 and left behind a heart-broken man who misses her tremendously.
Buying that old Autocar turned out to be one of the best decisions Dale ever made. After purchasing the small dump truck, which still had its original 180 Cummins engine under the hood, Dale brought it home and removed the dump bed and put a fifth wheel on in its place. The boys in the shop started calling the truck “Big Bad John” and the name stuck. Dale put the truck on a round trip from Okmulgee, OK back to Mt. Vernon, MO hauling oil from the Phillips 66 refinery. Big John became a regular fixture on this route, having made 450 consecutive trips without one single breakdown. Every trucker in the area knew Big Bad John by the flickering left headlight and the foot of flame coming from the stacks.
On one of these trips, around the time the Mack Thermodyne came out, a driver of one of these new Mack’s was loading beside Big Bad John. The Mack driver told Big John’s driver to stay out of his way, because his truck was fast. At the next stop, the Mack driver was amazed to see the little Autocar right behind him. The Mack driver looked under Big John’s hood and stated, “Man, that’s a ghostly-looking thing!” Big John’s driver Bud scoffed and said, “You’ll think a ghost ran right through you when we leave here!” Twenty miles up the road, Big John, with Bud behind the wheel, blew the doors off that new Mack.
In the mid 1970’s, Big Bad John needed to slow down, so Dale pulled the truck into the shop and made it a single axle. Big John worked locally, pulling several different lighter loads, until finally retiring in the late 1970’s. From there, Big John was parked in the corner of their back lot where it sat – for many years – collecting dust and rust.
For years, Faye wanted to restore Dale’s old Autocar as a gift, but every time she tried to get it going, the project would bog down and get stalled because it was nearly impossible to find parts for the old relic. When Dale retired and sold the company, he told his son-in-laws (who bought it) that under no circumstance were they to sell Big John, as Blevins Asphalt was its home. After Faye passed away, Dale’s longtime friend and business associate, Gary Larson, brought Big John to his shop at Peterbilt of Joplin to finally fulfill Faye’s wishes and rebuild the truck in her honor. Cory Stuefen, the body shop manager at the dealership, was put in charge of the project.
The first decision that needed to be made was whether to restore it to its original stock condition, which would not be very fun to drive, or go all-out and customize the truck from the ground up. Knowing that Dale would appreciate things like power steering, air conditioning and a modern drivetrain, they opted to rebuild the truck on a newer chassis. And, since everything was going to have to be hand-built anyway, they might as well completely trick it out in the process. The entire build took about 15 months, but as you can see, it was well worth it.
Looking at the “before” pictures, you can see the shape that Big John was in when it arrived at the shop. The truck was rough and rusty, and hadn’t been started in years. All of the glass was broken, and, quite frankly, there wasn’t much left to save. But the guys in the shop made due. Some of the pieces that remained original include the cab, the brass clearance lights, the windshield frames, the dash and part of the grille shell. The truck was stripped down to the bare frame rails, as was the “donor” truck (a newer Peterbilt dump truck that had rolled over), and then the process of rebuilding began. To help get all of the lines right, Cory and his crew built wood mock-ups of the trailer and sleeper, to make sure that everything would fit tight and line up correctly.
Big John now rides on a 2004 Peterbilt 330 chassis complete with air-ride, an Allison automatic transmission and a Caterpillar C-12 engine with 400 horsepower. The guys in the shop (the customizing shop at Peterbilt of Joplin is known as Truck Rods) hand-fabricated the front fenders, all four pieces of the louvered butterfly hood, lengthened and widened the original grille shell and hand-fabricated the rear steps, flush deck plate and one-off stainless steel light bar. Today, Big Bad John is a true work of art!
Painted Pearl White with Sirius White fenders and accents, Big John’s exterior includes fiberglass fenders from Cool Truck Components, five-inch straight pipes, single round headlights, dual Vortox air cleaners, smooth stainless steel boxes, LED load lights on the back of the sleeper and a billet grille. The fuel and air tanks were painted, as was the cab and sleeper extensions and the headlight pedestals. Under the hood looks good, too, but this Cat C-12 is not just another pretty face. The six-speed Allison automatic transmission, hooked to a 2.93 ratio rear end, shifts into sixth gear at around 90 mph and the rpm’s drop to about 500, meaning Big John still has a lot of muscle left to flex from there.
But they didn’t stop at the exterior – the interior is incredible, too. Double Eagle built Big John a custom 70-inch sleeper that features a flat-screen television, side windows, a couch and lounger, refrigerator, wood floor, a sunroof and a rear entry door for easy access. The inside of the cab is fitted with a custom interior that includes a painted dash (black and white with barbed wire trim) with new black-faced gauges, a unique center console, two-tone door panels, leather seats, a billet steering column, a navigation system with GPS, tilt-out windshields (“old school” air conditioning) and tinted glass.
Being a modest and quiet guy, Cory does not like to take credit for the work, but he did an amazing job on Big John’s reconstruction. Of course, he got plenty of help from the rest of the guys in the shop, including his boss, Gary Larson. Gary and his five brothers own The Larson Group, which currently owns and operates eight Peterbilt truck dealerships throughout Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Arkansas. They also have a finance company called Capital Lending and a salvage and parts business called Truck Component Service in Strafford, Missouri (some of Big John’s components came from there). Gary and Dale have been doing business together for over 20 years, and Dale has always been one of Gary’s favorite customers.
Cory has been with The Larson Group for over 20 years. He’s also very good friends with Gary’s youngest brother Kory (I bet that gets confusing). Apparently, Cory and Kory were a force to be reckoned with back in high school. Before moving to Joplin in 1990, Cory worked at another Larson-owned dealership in South Dakota, which is also where he grew up. Married with three children, Cory stays pretty busy. But he still finds time to run the Truck Rods division at Peterbilt of Joplin. Over the years, Cory and the Truck Rods crew have built some of the most well-known trucks on the show circuit, including Clint Dicks’ “Freshly Squeezed,” Vladimir Bilik’s “Peterod,” Tom & Kim Turner’s “El Dorado,” and both Dallas and Matthew McCord’s (father and son, respectively) flashy orange and white Peterbilts, just to name a few.
Well, it seems that you can add the Autocar to the already-long list of award-winning rigs that Truck Rods has built. Big Bad John was recently awarded Best of Show Limited Mileage Bobtail at the annual truck show in Louisville, Kentucky last March – and there was some stiff competition out there. Last year, when the truck made its debut at the show in Dallas, Texas, it didn’t win much or get much recognition – but it sure did catch our eyes. The truck has an understated elegance, and if you glance at it quickly, you might think that it is just another Peterbilt show truck and walk right by it. But when your eye catches that Autocar logo on the front of the grille, and then you notice those cool tilt-out windshields, it just blows your mind. Then, when you read the brag board and see that it’s a 1942 truck (almost 70 years old), you realize what a gem this little rig really is.
At 75 years young, Dale doesn’t look like he’ll be slowing down anytime soon. He worked hard his entire life, and he really doesn’t know how to be retired. So he just keeps busy. He and Faye had four daughters, who in turn gave then 10 grandchildren, and then twenty-two great-grandchildren. Several of Dale’s grandsons are heavily involved in the rodeo circuit – one is even a champion roper. When Big John was built, it was always intended to be used to pull a nice horse trailer, with living quarters inside, to these events. Dale has not pulled the trailer to one yet, but he hopes to do it soon.
Over the years, Dale has owned just about everything you could imagine, including several airplanes and every other type of vehicle. At one point, Faye said to him, “I don’t know what else you want to do in life – you’ve owned just about everything but a train.” Dale replied, “If I could find a place to put the tracks, I’d get me an engine!”
Blevins Asphalt is still alive and well, now owned and operated by the third generation – Dale’s daughter Terrie and her husband Derrick Stokes. They currently have over 50 employees, and have kept very busy, even in these tough economic times. Dale’s father taught him early on that if you run your business right and always go the extra mile, you’ll never have to advertise your services. And he never did. Dale is a very humble, Christian man who feels very blessed at the life the Lord has allowed him to live.
Knowing that his wife is in a better place now and that she no longer is suffering with pain, gives Dale some comfort – but she is still missed very much – not just by Dale, but by the entire family. As much as he loves Big Bad John, the rig is still bitter-sweet for Dale. Every time he looks at the truck, he thinks of Faye, which can be difficult. He is sad that his wife never got to see the project completed, but he hopes that she would approve of what they all did in her memory.