Owner/Driver #339
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“I loved every minute<br />
of it, but ‘been<br />
there and done that’<br />
definitely applies.”<br />
Top & opposite: The before<br />
and after on this Western Star<br />
shows the intent of the new TV<br />
show, which will feature full<br />
restorations as well as smaller<br />
builds<br />
Above: Jon loves the movie so<br />
much he commissioned this<br />
picture, which hangs in his office<br />
Opposite below: This Cumminspowered<br />
Western Star is one of the<br />
trucks in the yard waiting for its<br />
new owner<br />
myself through that again. I loved every minute of it, but<br />
‘been there and done that’ definitely applies. I’ve learnt a lot<br />
about work/life balance since and the truck sales yard helps<br />
with that, but I’ve still got a couple of heavy haulage trucks<br />
getting spoilt.<br />
OD: So with heavy haulage in your rear view now, does that<br />
mean no MegaTruckers season 2?<br />
JK: Oh listen, with the new show, Mega Truck Rehab, there’s a<br />
little bit of MT in every episode we do. It’s a new show with<br />
a few familiar faces from the original series; it’s going to be<br />
like a Gas Monkey Garage crossed with American Pickers. We’ll<br />
go around and find these cool trucks and we’ll restore them<br />
and relive the history. Ideally we’re looking at 1980s-onward<br />
trucks and I like my North American trucks, so Kenworth,<br />
Western Star, Mack, I don’t mind an old White as well. I’d love<br />
to do a Kenworth ‘anteater’ but you’ll have to watch the show<br />
to find out.<br />
OD: The new show is just about truck restorations?<br />
JK: Everybody knows my trucks around the world, it’s not<br />
just Australia, so if you ask people about ‘Try Me’ or ‘Bandit<br />
One’, everyone knows these trucks, so as part of the show<br />
I do what I call a ‘statement truck’ and we’ve got five of<br />
those lined up to do. This is where I go and get a ‘barn find’<br />
classic or a very noteworthy truck and we do a full resto or<br />
a full change and it gets a name, it gets a personality and it<br />
becomes a member of the family, so that’s a lot to do with<br />
five of those this year.<br />
But, we will also do trucks that might come into the yard<br />
and I get a lot of metallic brown with gold stripes and then<br />
name that truck and put it on the yard to sell. Then we get<br />
trucks that come here and we do a quick turnaround and<br />
sell them. So, we’re covering all bases with something like a<br />
two or three hundred thousand dollar refurb right through<br />
to something which gets a quick detail, a pat on the bum<br />
and go.<br />
There’s been a massive following from the original<br />
MegaTruckers, so there’s been a lot interest from overseas in<br />
the US, UK, Ireland and, believe it or not, India. They have a<br />
big trucking culture over there.<br />
OD: You said yourself you did well in heavy haulage; will<br />
trucks sales alone pay for the show?<br />
JK: I would say 80 per cent of our revenue stream is from<br />
sales and only 20 per cent from haulage. We’re at a point<br />
now where we’re just transporting our own equipment. I’m<br />
getting too cranky and too old to deal with jaded customers<br />
and we haven’t got 100 trucks anymore so we can’t cater for<br />
major projects.<br />
Unfortunately, since my exit from the heavy haulage<br />
market, there’s been a lot of people replacing HHA and those<br />
people haven’t replaced the batteries in their calculators<br />
– they need an education on how to charge for specialised<br />
32 APRIL 2021 ownerdriver.com.au
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