NZ Truck & Driver November 2022

Page 89

Still earning after all these years

M

FEATURE Working Classics

t s e li d a e D h c t a C

WITH ITS NAME INSPIRED BY THE TV FISHING SERIES SET in the turbulent Bering Sea, Northchill’s ‘Northwestern’ is an iconic Kenworth K104 2.9m Fatcab that’s said to be the last to roll off the production line. However, its ‘Deadliest Catch’ reference could have taken on a whole new meaning when its owner Graham Redington introduced its ‘unexpected arrival’ to his wife. The big K104 itself was first registered in NZ in 2005, by Steve Gutshlag from Palmerston North, but Redington got involved with it several years later, when in 2010 Southpac’s truck salesmen Steve Herring gave him a call. “I had just bought an ex-Hall’s T404 Kenworth,” begins Redington, “But Herring said, `this truck’s coming on the market, it was the last one ever built, and did I want it?’ “I said yes. And this is where the story gets curly, because I never told my wife.” Redington says that he had basically bought two trucks in one day, one was planned but evidently the K104 was not. He recalls that he got off the phone and thought how the f##k am I going to tell Michelle? And in fact, he didn’t for a while. “Anyway, we had some friends come over from Aussie to stay and after a couple of wines over dinner I thought I’d just drop it into the conversation - that was the worst thing I ever did, and I’ll

never do that again. To this day, [12 years later] this is still a raw subject.” Despite the flack, Redington had little regret over his purchase, he says “You learn with your f##k ups, but it was too significant not to take it,” adding, “when people found out I got it I was offered $30k more than I paid for it.” What makes this truck so desirable is both its size and scarcity. Nowadays the ‘big cab’ Kenworth’s are 2.8m and this one is 2.9m, so it’s a bigger truck cab with windows in the sleeper. What’s more, Redington believes that there are only nine in the country, making it very rare indeed. Once the ‘introduction’ dust had settled, they sat on it for about four months, ‘as we didn’t know what we were going to do with it’, then they painted it white and green and got it to tow their chemical tankers. According to Redington, despite the engine ‘sh##ing itself’ at the pink pig (SH27) one morning a couple of years after getting it, (meaning they had to drop in a brand new 14L Cummins signature 620) the Kenworth has worked well for over a decade, but earlier this year he decided it needed a full rebuild - and for that he turned to his workshop supervisor Mark Dodds. “We did the full resto here in our workshop, we’ve got four mechanics here with Mark in charge of the whole rebuild. Mark is Truck & Driver | 87


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