After many months of searching, Sam Hughes – better known as The Travelling Jackaroo – has bought the truck he’ll use to haul his upcoming mobile museum across the country.
For those who haven’t followed Sam’s story, he completed a three and half year charity run last August, travelling 27,250 kilometres across Australia in a 1957 model Chamberlain tractor. He also raised over $260,000 for his three chosen charities along the way.
Now, alongside working full time for Queensland towing company Clayton’s Towing, Sam is in the process of building a mobile museum. He first told Big Rigs of his plans for this project over a year ago, when he said, “The museum will focus on the Aussie battlers – on the people who built the country including our truckies and the transport industry.
There was just one issue, he hadn’t yet found the right truck. But yesterday he updated his 276,000 Facebook followers with a big announcement – that the search was finally over.
“I’ve found my truck, (third times the charm),” Sam said.
“Introducing my lil Scania 113. Now she’s a bit new for my taste at only 30 years of age and not the most Aussie truck out there but I had to take a step back and make a few realisations in the last few weeks which led me to take her home.”
He continued, “I’m not planning on moving mountains, and a single drive is a hell of a lot cheaper to rego and run than a bogey drive, only limitations being on getting bogged a bit easier and having a limit of 9 tonne on the back axle but that’s ok for me.
“My backs pretty shot and unlike a lot of older trucks this ole girls very comfortable to drive.”
Sam said that at $15k, the Scania 113 also fell within his budget. He’s since been getting parts to get the truck in tip top shape.
He said that the truck had already had a full out of chassis rebuild and is in very tidy shape, but added, “There’s a few things I’ve gotta do still including a bullbar and doing her up in my livery to make her stand out a bit more but I’m happy. Once we’ve gone through her and gotten rego then I’ll be bringing home the museum trailer to begin work on it.
“I think I’ll be selling the single axle dropdeck that I got with it to upgrade to a bogey one for a bit more capacity and then should have a very capable lil unit for my adventures!”
In February, Sam also revealed he’d purchased a 10.5 metre trailer to house his museum.