READERS AND THEIR RIGS - FEBRUARY 2006

Sweet Superliner from Down Under

This month’s Readers And Their Rigs comes to us all the way from Australia! Tommy Buckle of Camperdown, Australia is the owner of this 1986 Series 2 Mack Superliner. Featuring a beautiful paint scheme and lots of chrome, this rig pulls a 45-foot trailer, hauling air freight all around Australia, averaging about 5,000 kilometers (that’s about 3,100 miles) per week. The trailer has a mezzanine floor, which is two (or more) floors inside that can be lowered or raised to allow more freight to be loaded, which is perfect for the parcels and small boxes Tommy hauls. The truck was built by Klos Custom Trucks in Lara, Australia and painted by Transcolor in Melbourne. Transcolor sprayed a high-quality color from Ford called Blueprint, which costs about $350 a litre (and there’s about 20 litres of blue, not to mention the metallic silver and black), on the truck. This rig is powered by a 500 horsepower V-8 engine, an 18-speed transmission and 3.87 rears. Fitted with four 500-litre fuel tanks (2000 litres equals about 440 gallons), this Mack can go a long way without stopping. Other exterior details include dark tinted windows, extended air intakes, white-lens LED’s and many custom pieces. The truck’s interior features a wood steering wheel and dash, a $16,000 stereo, a mahogany wood floor (which helps keep noise and heat out of the cab), a VCR/DVD player with 18-inch plasma screen in the bunk and a navigation system. Klos Custom Trucks has been a subscriber to 10-4 Magazine for the last two years. Each month, we send them a packet with several copies of the latest edition, which they apparently pass out to their friends down under, like Tommy Buckle. Our thanks go out to the folks at Klos for doing that.