Kenworth K-100 Grey Ghosts

These guys could really drive, pushing the rigs to their limits. In the army at Morebank in 1970 and drove to Melbourne a few times on weekend leave in a 1957 Mainline ute. It could get along, 9 1/2 hours best time from there to Mount Waverley with quick fuel stops at Yass and Wodonga. Going back Sunday nights was good if you could lock in behind one of them. Up through the Cullerins early one morning, couldn't keep up with the ghost, he had drive wheels off the road in some corners at about 80 mph. He obviously knew every inch of the road and how to hit the corners just right.
To think of doing the trip then in under 9 hours with the terrible road standards and many small towns methinks they deserve a medal! A real skill of yesteryear as those conditions have all changed. Hope as many as possible have survived to enjoy retirement and great memories. Thanks for sharing this information. Cheers, Paul.

How many twin steer ghosts were built in total?

How many twin steer ghosts were built in total?

Jimbo or Werkhorse will know for sure..

Well I can't confim the exact amount .... but there were fleet numbers up to 845 ... 8 meaning 8 wheelers .... So far I have 28-29 with 8V71s .... 9 with 6V92s and 3 with 6V92s and load sharing front suspension .... So that makes for 41 in total found so far.

But if you want to get anal about it ....Out of the 28-29 ..... I am not sure if they were all grey or some came in P&C colours ....

In conclusion .... I'm not exactly sure how many true grey ghost 8x4s there were

What year did the Peaches and Cream start?

Somewhere around mid 76

Well,
back in business after a bit of a glitch & the windows 10 upgrade.

Just a bit about the 8 wheelers with the load sharing steer axles.

843, 844(my old girl) & 845 were at the Zacuba brick yard with Alltrans.

Yep, they had the load sharing twin steer axles, BUT, the load sharing bit was not operating.

HOW was that ?........well the rocker arms between the axles had blocks welded to them with

corresponding blocks welded to the centre spring hangers thus virtually making them solid, &

negating the load share bizzo & turning them into a non load sharing solid axle set up.

As far as the authorities were concerned , the load sharing bit still applied as we still got the load

sharing weight allowance .

Funny that no one picked this up at rego checks etc.

The weighbridge checks,,, shaker tests,,,,,runs over the portable scales, (a reasonably regular

occurance) .....no one spotted it.

The part about this is ..................why were the rockers blocked up????.............who did it?????

You would hardly think KW would make the truck with load sharing gear & at the same time

block it off (or did they???) so we will assume TNT did the job.

So.........was it delivered with the load sharing working.......then for some reason it was changed later.????

So why would it have been blocked off later????........could it have been a handling problem.?????????

I suspect that when they were scooting along (considering the roads were not super good) the

steering might have been a bit doughey on bends & threw a few scares into some operators.

One other reason might be..........if you did a tyre with the load sharing working,, the full weight would

would still be on the flat tyre , if a tyre blew with the solid axle set up , the other wheel might tend

to hold the thing up a little & give you more of a chance to not come to grief.

I guess there is (or was) some one out there that knows the answer to that.

May be tyre wear came into the deal I don't know........

All I know is that with the blocks fitted , if there was a bit of movement of the rockers , the whole

thing rattled like hell all day long.
.................Billy..................

Time to drag this old thread back out with a dumb question I have lots of them

My question is about the name "Grey Ghost" and what it applies to to me it would mean a either 6 x 4 or a 8 x 4 body truck running some crazy speed interstate on over night deliveries ????

It was suggested the other day that the name "Grey Ghost" also applied to KW semi's owned and run by Ansett now because Im not real smart I made comment and was promptly told Im wrong fair enough I reckon

But I though the name "Grey Ghost" was given to these trucks because they arrived at the back of your truck out of blue flew past you like you was standing still scaring the bajeebers out of you in a half dazed state that you may have been in then vanished of into the night just as quick as they appeared and of course they were grey

I cant imagine to many semi's being able to do this back then

I asked Swishy the other night and he suggested maybe the body trucks got converted to semi's and thats why this semi is called a grey ghost ????

So whats the story people did the semis that were painted grey get called a "Grey Ghost" as well

thanks in advance

Paul

Slightly off topic, but have yet to see much about Wards (Batmobile) 8 wheelers. They used to go like the clappers as well, can't remember if they were 8/71T's may have even been 6/92T's or 8/92T's? Remember one snapping a crowbar going north down Bolivia, still got me beat how he held it upright and made it to the bottom in one piece!
By the time they were being wound up (Wards) I reckon that on that north run (Syd-Bris), the trailers were doing almost the same times as the rigids. And this in an era of some very fast trucks indeed.
I know this post referes to the 8 wheelers, but I don't think that they would have been doing the times/speeds that the earlier 6 wheeler "Ghosts" were doing, would they? Maybe it was just that the rest of us were driving a lot slower trucks and the way they'd bag you up, 6 wheelers, you would get out and make sure you were still actually moving!
Dave

Paul, this is what I've been able to work out ....

.... Kwikasair, under Walter Shapowloff's ownership, bought these huge, fast KWs painted German Racing Silver ... metallic grey ... at the time they were loaded a bit less than, say, a general freight truck .... Wally wanted a fast overnight express service .... and they were geared pretty fast (although Ansett trucks were geared faster but had a 50 mph company speed limit) ... the combination of big HP (for the day) lighter loading .... speeding tickets that were not really a deterrent (there's a few good stories about the tickets).... young blokes who had no fear .... (originally) one truck - one driver operation .... saw these early trucks create the legend that is the grey ghosts.

As you said Paul, they came up on others at a fast clip .... remembering that most trucks were painfully slow back then .... wooshed past before you actually had time for it to register .... hence the name ... Grey (GRS silver) Ghosts (out of nowhere and into the dark).

Now from March/April 1968 until about August 1972 there were only Rigid Ghosts .... but with the arrival of 3 semis the name carried over to them aswell .... people just recognised the colour .... not the type of truck .... which brings me to another point ....

There were more trucks apart from Kenworth that were painted GRS ....

1 8x4 rigid White Road Commander
1 6x4 semi White Road Commander
At least 4 4x2 F86 Volvo Rigids
At least 2 G88 Volvo's
And possibly more

All painted GRS ....

Hope that explains what a ghost is ... be it rigid or semi

As for Ansett .... they were never part of TNT (KAA,Comet etc) until 1979 and by that stage the ghosts had disappeared (last one in mid 76). It's colours from the beginning was blue and yellow .... and they had a 50 mph company set speed limit ... enforced quite harshly apparently ... hardly what you'd consider ghost material

Hope that helps Paul