COVER FEATURE - SEPTEMBER 2010
A LEGACY OF RESPECT
TRUCKER BUILDS RIG TO HONOR GRANDFATHER
By Daniel J. Linss - Editor
Joe Zonneveld was a very well-known and respected truck driver his entire life. Joe’s son Bill Zonneveld drove for 50 years before retiring, and Joe’s 40-year-old grandson Jeff Zonneveld has already spent over 20 years in the driver’s seat. Jeff, who lives in West Sacramento, CA owns and operates a classic-looking KW that he built to look like his grandfather’s old trucks from the 1970s – partly because he likes those old trucks, and partly to honor his grandfather’s memory. But this article is more than just a feature about Jeff and his truck – it is a story about all three generations of the Zonneveld truckers.
Joe Zonneveld was born in Washington in 1914. His first driving job was hauling milk on his father’s dairy. In his early twenties, Joe started log trucking for Weyerhaeuser who, at that time, had the worlds largest sawmill in Longview, WA. In 1947, Joe moved south to Bieber, CA (about 100 miles east of Redding) where he continued to work in the lumber industry. In 1949, Joe moved further south to Auburn and bought his first truck. Shortly after that, Joe moved the family to Arcata, CA (on the coast near Eureka) and started running his own fleet of lumber and log trucks. Always following the work, Joe and his family finally settled in Sacramento in 1953.
Jeff’s grandpa Joe always drove Kenworths. His trucks were never very fancy, but he always kept them looking good. And he never wanted a truck with an air-ride suspension – all of Joe’s trucks had torsion bar suspension because it was lighter and offered better traction. At the height of his business, Joe had ten trucks, and most of them looked like Jeff’s truck today – painted a school bus yellow color with a white stripe and black accents. Joe retired (sort of) in 1980, but the company kept going under the supervision of Jeff’s uncle John. As the logging industry began to slow, the company, which was called Superior California Trucking, began hauling other products like wood chips, building materials, equipment and fruit boxes. The company came to an end when Jeff’s uncle John retired in 2000, and then Grandpa Joe died in 2002.
Bill Zonneveld, Jeff’s dad, started driving when he was 16 in the 1950s. Bill drove for his father almost his entire life. After recovering from a heart attack he had in 1995, Bill reassessed his life and decided to buy his own truck. For the last ten years of his trucking career, Bill was an owner operator (Bill Zonneveld Trucking). When he retired in 2006, he had driven for 50 years.
Growing up in Sacramento, Jeff loved to go trucking with his dad, his grandpa, or anyone else who would take him. When he was young, Jeff spent a lot of time at the shop working on trucks. At one point, he even had his own truck washing business. As soon as he turned 18, Jeff started driving for his grandfather, hauling all sorts of freight, but mostly wood chips. In 1995, when Jeff’s father had that heart attack, Jeff had to jump into his dad’s truck and take over his regular haul down to Los Angeles. When Jeff’s dad decided not to come back, Jeff got stuck with this route for about a year.
Jeff was not very happy about having to go down south on a regular basis because his wife had just given birth to their daughter and he wanted to be home more. So, Jeff decided to leave his grandpa’s company and took a job delivering fuel locally around Sacramento. He did that for about a year, until his dad convinced him to buy a truck from him and go out on his own. Jeff agreed, bought the truck, and then formed Jeff Zonneveld Trucking in 1997. That first truck was a yellow 1986 Kenworth W900 (one of his grandpa’s old trucks) very similar to the one he owns today. For the next six years, Jeff pulled for Joe Costa Trucking, hauling mostly lumber.
In 2000, Jeff decided to order a new truck. Sticking to tradition, he ordered a yellow KW with a 50” flattop sleeper, almost exactly like the one he had, except the new one had a long hood. He ordered the truck with a Cummins Signature 600 engine, a high-torque 18-speed trans, oversized rear-ends and heavy duty drivelines – basically, he wanted to be ready for anything. That truck is the one you see on our cover/centerfold this month – but it didn’t look quite the same. When he first got the new truck, it had dual stacks, aluminum air cleaners, square headlights, a big bumper and larger fuel tanks – all the “normal” stuff a 2000 Kenworth came equipped with.
After hauling lumber for several years, Jeff bought a used chip trailer and started hauling wood chips for Erv Bettendorf Trucking. Running closer to home and being paid by weight, he no longer needed (or wanted) his sleeper so he took it off. Jeff sent the trailer out to be painted and, even though he gave them the proper paint code, when it came back it did not exactly match the truck. But Jeff liked the color – even more than the original color of his truck – so he left it that way until 2005 and then had the truck repainted to match the trailer. He then added the white stripe and painted the top of the hood black.
In 2007, when the economy really started slowing down, Jeff left Bettendorf and started hauling for a local logger, hauling wood chips out of the forest and moving equipment. That lasted for about two years and then Jeff found himself taking a forced vacation – for about five months. During that time, he decided to take advantage of the downtime and redo his truck to look like one of his grandfather’s typical rigs from back in the 1970s. The first thing Jeff did was put the sleeper back on, but guess what – it didn’t match anymore because it was still painted the original shade of yellow that the truck came with. So, back to the paint shop the truck went for yet another yellow paint job. Wanting to make sure everything looked right and matched, Jeff had the entire truck (and sleeper) repainted, including the white stripe and black-topped hood.
Continuing the truck’s transformation, Jeff switched out the square headlights with round ones, removed one of the stacks (grandpa’s trucks always had a single stack), and added an old-style muffler shield. He then replaced the shiny aluminum air cleaners with painted (black) old-style steel ones, changed the 120-gallon fuel tanks to 100-gallon (painted) tanks, and replaced the large front bumper with a smaller, tapered version. Jeff then added a custom-built Pro-Tech headache rack, diamond-plate decking, and a few small pieces reminiscent of the 1970s era. The Hogebuilt quarter fenders with tubular brackets are the same ones that the truck came with when it was originally ordered back in 2000. Keeping with the 1970s theme, all of the lights are old-style incandescents – there are no LEDs! Even Jeff’s door logo was adjusted a bit to look more like the original logo his grandpa had back when he first got started – back when he was running as Joe Zonneveld Trucking.
At this time, Jeff bought an old 43’ 1979 outside frame Peerless flatbed to pull behind his freshly redone retro truck. Wanting it to match the tractor, he had the trailer painted white with matching yellow trim, and had the white stripe painted across the back. The trailer features an air-ride suspension, painted boxes and racks underneath that hold his ladder, straps and tarps, an on-board scale, and, like the truck, no LED lights. As soon as the combination was complete, he went to work hauling lumber for Dan Dukes Trucking out of Sacramento. But shortly after our photo shoot, Jeff went back to hauling wood chips for Erv Bettendorf Trucking, so if you see him out on the road now, he will most likely be pulling a chip trailer.
Jeff and his wife Michelle have known each other since kindergarten. After getting together in high school, they got married 19 years ago. Michelle works for the California Highway Patrol at their new “compound” (headquarters) located near their home in Sacramento. Their daughter Rebecca (15) loves to go trucking with her dad whenever possible. She also likes to go with him to the trucks shows, and can even “talk truck” with the best of them. Jeff and his dad are both members of the Central Valley Chapter of the ATHS, and both enjoy taking their old restored KW’s to the antique shows – Jeff has a 1970 A-model and his dad has a 1955 conventional, which they are planning to convert into a neat old log truck in the near future.
Having logged 925,000 miles in Truck #2, Jeff has no plans to replace the retro-looking rig anytime soon. And although his freight changes from time to time, his commitment to keeping his grandfather’s legacy alive and well will never change. Jeff learned a lot from his grandpa Joe and misses him very much, but he likes having a part of his grandfather with him wherever he goes in the truck. Joe Zonneveld was well-known and respected by all who knew him, and Jeff hopes that this rolling tribute to his grandfather and his company helps to keep that fact from being forgotten. And if Jeff Zonneveld can follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, maybe he too can build a legacy of respect, and be honored and remembered by many generations to come.