The Historic Commercial Vehicle Club (HCVC) of Australia returned to the Yarra Glen Racecourse in Victoria on Sunday for its popular annual truck show.
An ideal venue, Yarra Glen offers lots of space, plenty of trees for shade and a huge undercover area should it rain – not that that was a problem this year.
The trucks are also joined by buses galore and the Chrysler Car Club, with the latter’s showings outnumbering the trucks. The bottom line is there’s plenty to see.
Brenton Goggerly used to transport John Deere farm machinery for a living, but his dream was to get into heavy towing. The opportunity arose earlier this year when Modern Towing bought out Eagle Towing.
“It’s a hard industry to get into, but they were looking for drivers so I applied and was lucky enough to get the job,” Brenton said.
“Initially I was looking at driving super-tilts for them because that’s what I used to drive doing the farm machinery.
“I said I would love to do this (the heavy stuff) eventually and they said they would train me in doing the heavy work from the get go.”
We asked if there was a special course involved in and Brenton replied that the training is mostly done on the job.
“You go out with one of the more experienced drivers and get to understand the various systems: how the lift works, the air fittings and where you plum them in to release the brakes, how to do tail shafts, all the specific stuff for different trucks. So it’s learn as you go, and you learn something new in this industry every day.”
Brenton’s work is mostly in Melbourne’s east, but he has been as far afield as Echuca and Warrnambool. It is not unusual to head out to three or more jobs in a day.
“There is so much different work and different environments. It might be a log truck or taut liner or a delivery truck. We go right down to the little delivery trucks for supermarkets.”
Brenton is driving a 1922 extended chassis Kenworth T909. It took about a year for the body to be manufactured so it didn’t go on the road until about December of last year. With 85,000km on the clock the truck is ‘bog standard’ as Brenton described it, with a Cummins X15 and 18 speed RR gearbox.
His heaviest tow to date has been a B-double log truck at 68.5 tonnes.
“It was a bit slow up the hills, but you take your time in towing and make sure everything is done safely.”
Many, if not most of the trucks on display have a few kilometres on their clocks. And that means they will break down from time to time. Such was the case with Ross Simpson’s 1992 KW.
“Had a broken pushrod yesterday which we fixed, then it blew the tip off an injector on the way here.”
The result of that broken injector was clouds of white smoke billowing for what seemed like kilometres from the exhaust stacks and Ross attracting close interest from the boys in blue on the way to Yarra Glen.
What to do? Fix it of course, and that’s what Ross was doing when we met.
“I keep getting advice from people who think they know better than I do,” he quipped. “Only owned the old girl since 1997.”
We watched Ross masterfully complete his roadside repairs and witnessed that white smoke replaced by the usual diesel black. “That’ll get me home.”
Max-Marmon is not a brand many would have heard of and that’s because just 22 were brought into the country by Peter Max in the 1990s. Of those 22, 20 still remain on the road and actively working. One is currently in the NT hauling three trailers with 150-tonne gross.
There was also one at Yarra Glen, having been bought eight years ago by Gavin Spence, who saw the truck on the highway at Bairnsdale many years before. The truck belonged to Neville Gray and while not for sale, Gavin kept in touch with him, eventually procuring the Max-Marmon when Neville retired.
On this day at Yarra Glen, we were lucky to meet up with both Gav and Peter Max himself. That gave the opportunity to ask Peter why.
“I was originally an owner driver in the 70’s, running all over. Then I started moving a bit of my own freight and ended up having chemical tankers which I sold to ICI. I was looking for something else to do. I thought building a truck in competition with all the big boys in the late 80s/early 90s would be a good thing to do.
“I just wanted to get a better truck. A lot of the trucks we were operating weren’t as good as I would like and I thought it would be a good business venture. I was in America, found Marmon, negotiated an Australia-wide distributorship and started bringing them in, converting and selling them.
“The chassis on them was brilliant; so strong! And the cabs were all aluminium so they were relatively light as well. We bought in all-Caterpillar power trains for the trucks. In the States you could get Detroit or Cummins but I had a great relationship with Caterpillar and they were very supportive, so I went exclusively with them.
“They were the last hand built truck in the world. Henry Ford in fact drove a Marmon car until he bought Lincoln. They stopped making cars in the 1950’s. They really were a hand built, custom truck. Then they sold out to Navistar. Overnight they shut the doors and that was the end of my business. The last ones came into Australia in 1997. One day I was a rooster, the next a feather duster.”
Now in Gavin’s hands the original 3406E motor has been replaced with a C15 CAT, set at 600hp.
“It’s just a really lovely truck. Great power, drives nicely, it’s quiet and comfortable. It has the 18-speed Road Ranger on New Way air bag suspension. And it has proper wheels on,” said Glenn, pointing to the Spiders.
This is a spectacular looking truck from any angle and one which Gavin says he will keep. “The girls can move it on after I’m gone.”
I left the two of them discussing what warranty may be left on this 1995 Max-Marmon.
As always with HCVC events, there was a variety of trucking product on show, from Gavin’s Max-Marmon down to delivery trucks from a long bygone era – and everything in-between. And as always, it was great to be able to attend.
- For more pictures from the event, grab your free copy of the November 22 edition of Big Rigs from the usual outlet.