Owner/Driver #339

has become a loyal and much-admired friend. In
at least one instance, many years back, he was also
a generous coach as he handed over the wheel of a
fully loaded log truck to teach the finer features of
operating Spicer’s versatile but somewhat quirky
20-speed transmission. It was a classic example
of ‘easy when you know how’, and the lesson was
never forgotten.
By the time of Quinten Bruce Mathie’s arrival in
September 1986, his father and uncles (Kevin, Gill
and Stuart) had in separate ways steadily built the
family business into arguably the most prominent
logging enterprise on the NSW south coast.
The mainstay of the business had long been the
handling of logs with bulldozers and loaders but
the purchase in 1981 of a second-hand White Road
Boss added haulage to the operation and with
Phillip and Gill initially doing much of the driving,
trucks quickly developed into an integral part of
the business.
The demise of White, however, while especially
disappointing to Phillip, posed the question of
‘which truck next, Kenworth or White’s Canadian
cousin, the newly introduced Western Star?’
With so much White in its heritage, Western Star
won with the Mathie purchase in 1984 of a new
Cummins-powered Cheyenne 4800 model. An
almost identical unit followed a year later and it
was a confident Phillip who said at the time: “There
were a few early doubts about whether the Western
Star company would last long in Australia … but the
two we have are giving us a good run.”
While Western Star’s future back then was still
questionable as various negotiations between
Australian interests led by high profile Brisbanebased
businessman Terry Peabody and the brand’s
Canadian connections continued into the 1990s,
Mathie’s allegiance to both the truck and
Cummins engines remained rock solid. As time
and toil continued to show, the allegiance was well
founded but somewhat surprisingly, Terry would
come to play a significant role in Phillip’s future,
well beyond trucks. A role that, for some, may seem
completely foreign to a Peabody reputation for cold,
uncompromisingly tough business tactics.
In the interim, however, and in the middle of a
global recession in the early ’90s, Terry shocked the
socks off everyone when he bought Western Star
Trucks Incorporated, which included, of course,
its manufacturing facility in Kelowna, British
Columbia.
It was a decisive swoop which shored up his
Australian investment by quickly returning the
Canadian offshoot of the former White Motor
Corporation to a financially viable and respected
builder of high quality trucks.
So viable, in fact, that in 2000 he sold the
whole Western Star operation – with the
notable exception of the Australian business –
to German giant Daimler Trucks North America.
Yet, throughout much of Western Star’s local
history, a friendship was quietly developing,
which to many may even now seem unusual.
Indeed, it’s a very broad chasm both personally
and professionally from the private planes and
calculating character of wheelin’ dealin’ billionaire
businessmen like Terry, to the truck cabs and
workshops of hard-edged men like Phillip.
There is, however, a mutual respect and
instinctive trust between these two entirely
different men that is almost certainly at odds with
the perceptions, and even understanding, of most
people. Yet, on those occasions when the two are
in each other’s company, and long after Terry’s
involvement with Western Star has ended, the
mutual regard remains as obvious as it is genuine.
Equally obvious, it’s no surprise that the only new
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