Deals on Wheels #464

DEALS Resto
There’s speculation it may have started its
life working for Brambles but nothing to
prove that. Rumours also have it working
around Tamworth, as well as stories about it
operating as a road-train unit on some pretty
rough roads. The best I could do was track
down the man who managed to pick up the
old Mack in 1988, for just $5,000, at a repo
auction up in Brisbane.
That man, who was the first responsible
for keeping ‘Survivor’ surviving, is a Raglan
farmer named Andrew Creed. The name is
well known around the central Queensland
area as his family has been farming there
since the first day someone looked at a cow
and thought ‘yup, I’m going to squeeze those
and drink whatever comes out’. The family
farm is in its sixth generation.
The Creed family is also well known for
their charity work in the local area, having
been a huge part of the successful Old Station
Fly-In and Heritage Show (another Covid
victim, but the show’s back in 2022, so don’t
miss it).
Sorry, I’m waffling again. Let’s go back to
1988 when Creed was just a teenager. Back
then, the farming family had a few old Macks
working for them. The good old Flintstones
were a farm favourite for the Creeds. There
was need for an extra truck though and
Andrew was bustled off to Brisbane to a
repossession auction to look at an F-model
up for grabs.
It wasn’t pleasant. I’m no mechanic but even
I know the flywheel is meant to be attached,
not loose. I’m aware brakes are encouraged
to be working, chassis rails aren’t meant to
include cracks and the radiator is designed
to hold fluid and cool the engine, not the
opposite.
Despite all this and several other issues,
young Andrew could see the potential.
“It was very sad,” he admits but adds: “I could
see past that, I could see it was a good truck.”
He also freely admits it was cheap, five
grand was all it cost him. Well that and the
expense of floating it up to Raglan because
there was no way it was driveable.
One of George’s prize
possessions is this
factory Mack key
(Inset) The F609’s
original build sheet
103