peterbilts,then and now

All Peterbilts welcome to celebrate 50 years of Peterbilt in Australia

TranstarPeterbilts too Slasha


chocs

..... :-X :-X just exactly what is Chocs up to?

detective,
Found this picture in an old truck book i had stored away.
The book was published in 1983, do you know of any history of this one

photo source: trucks and trucking by Elliot Bradley

Who got here first , Kenworth or Peterbilt ??

g'day LN700 .. crikey, has that old truck got a history....

... a Polish American by the name of Mike Kudinoff who formed South West Waste in SA was a waste disposal man and decided he needed those great yankee jiggers he was used to seeing doing their work over there ..out here ..and imported a few of these LHD second hand units to carry out the work they were expected to do ....

...the plans for conversion from left to right never materialised, because Brambles (Cleanaway) ended up buying out his whole operation, ..and he ended up back in the USA...

...from that point these old jiggers were sold off and ended up carving it out doing all kinds of work other than their main intention ...and this piccy is showing one of those applications ..and what the picture doesn't show is the two trailers it is pulling..

..he imported no more than half a dozen of these things, and a few have survived...including the cabin of the one pictured, now residing in my own back yard, and other than doing a stint in Victoria in the mid 70's with the name Ramblin' Rose on the bullbar, was operated out of SA for most of its working life ....cheers

Hi Detective, wow mate thanks for the history, great to see that part of the truck has survived. Will it be restored or used as parts ,you can tell me no one else will know
thanks

DETECTIVE PHIL
Think back to the very late 60's and early 70's
There was a guy/guys in South Australia, out near Parafield from memory, that bought in some LHD COE Petes and KW's and they started doing RHD conversions on them. Their work was a bit shonky to say the least, no ADR compliance or anything. Word came through at KW that if one of the converted jiggers ever came in for repairs we had to refuse to do the job.
They did marvelous bits of engineering like leaving all the steering on the LHS, but put the steering wheel on the right and use chains and sprockets to get the rotation across.
Easiest way to pick them was the narrow space between the engine tunnel and the door on the RHS. Not even enough room for a normal seat, let alone a gear stick or two.

Detective and LN 700, that pic has been put up before and an interesting thing that Werk noticed was that it has a KW Grill surround which isn't obvious because the flap is open.

Gday all , BBpete thats a good ole truck you got there mate and with a bit of history too . I always used to admire that truck when the previous owner had it and Im glad you have it now . cheers Rob

AtkiPete
Gudday M8

RE: Who got here first , Kenworth or Peterbilt ??

Sorry
But the boys in the kno R stihl bizzy count n rivetts
LOL

I'd have a guess
th@ there were a few imports early on
as in x WWII HD recovery trucks of the KW variety
and the story of the Pete's from tective
but guess n trucks imported for hwy use
May B Kenworth followed by a few months L8R by Peterbilt
But Mack were here in numbers long B 4 the hwy trucks
U could also include Inter n white
if U call them early trucks as hwy trucks
LOL
now th@ should raise a few heckles
LOL
cya

...nah swishy .. it's all good ...as we all know there are firsts...and then there are other more obscure firsts

...Grumpy that one in the pic is about a 1967 model and was first operated in the 'territory LHD and eventually made its way to Greg Simmonds and family at Lochiel, after conversion from left to right....pretty ordinary but good enough for the job... and did have a RH steering box, but not mounted like the original 1963-66 imports...