Owner/Driver #339
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equipment. They’re running around for shit.<br />
They’re running around for rates that are less<br />
than my grandfather was getting 30 years ago.<br />
I recognise that since 30 years ago economies of<br />
scale have improved, but I used to get spoilt with<br />
money. I used to get paid, but we offered a good<br />
service, we had the best men and the best gear, but<br />
now customers are ringing up and they just want<br />
the best price.<br />
OD: The format of a lot of car shows include<br />
selling the vehicle. Are you going to do this with<br />
the trucks you restore or will they just sell off the<br />
yard?<br />
JK: With the high class trucks it will be interesting<br />
to see what we get for those commercially. Some<br />
of those trucks are ones you can’t really go and<br />
advertise, it’s more a guy comes into the yard and<br />
says ‘is that for sale’ and everything is for sale<br />
at a price, so I think we’ll see some big numbers<br />
filter through. Even some of my personal trucks,<br />
ones I thought I’d never sell, I’ve had some offers<br />
on some of those which are getting close.<br />
I love doing up trucks, I love buying trucks and<br />
putting my flair on them and being creative in<br />
that way. A lot of people have got Jon Kelly stories<br />
from far and wide but, y’know, one thing is I<br />
haven’t done a shit truck yet, so I enjoy exploiting<br />
that and I’ve sold a lot people a lot of gear.<br />
OD: We’ve seen plenty of used vehicles, cars and<br />
trucks, go up in price for a number of reasons.<br />
What are you seeing in the market?<br />
JK: I would say there’s definitely an upward<br />
shift in prices and it doesn’t help that, if you<br />
ordered a new Kenworth today you’d be lucky<br />
to get it this year, and that’s filtering through<br />
to our used truck yard here where trucks are<br />
lasting on the lot between five days and two<br />
weeks. We’ve done 35 trucks in the first 60 days<br />
of 2021. It’s ridiculous and if we keep that up<br />
it’ll be 200 units for the year.<br />
OD: Your trucks are immaculately presented<br />
and detailed, are you worried about them<br />
getting scratched when using them on the<br />
road?<br />
JK: Of course! My trucks are so flash I should<br />
charge the bugs to ride on them.<br />
ownerdriver.com.au<br />
APRIL 2021 33
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