Dolina Mackenze tells us the story behind her and husband Dan’s American dream – a Peterbilt 379.
“We have owned it for nine years. We were on holiday visiting my daughter Lilian and her family in Deepriver, Ontario, Canada. We bought it in Ottawa from a man called Ken Surgrue. A friend in Deepriver, Ken Gonneua, found this truck for us as we told him we were looking for an American truck to take home.
He took us to Ottawa to see the truck which was sitting in the snow as it was January. We met Ken Sugrue and paid him a deposit and said we would pay him the balance when he delivered the truck to Deepriver. Dan asked if he would also sell his Peterbilt jacket but he could not do that as his wife had bought it for him.
We then went to Nashville, Memphis, where we visited Gracelands. Then we went for a week in Texas. The Peterbilt was built in Denton, Texas, and we passed the factory but unfortunately we did not have time to visit it. Ken Gonneau phoned us to say Ken Surgrue had delivered the truck and also bought Dan a new Peterbilt jacket which was a lovely surprise.
When we got back to Deepriver after a 28 hour drive we were eager to go and inspect our purchase unable to believe we had actually bought an American truck. Now was the job of getting it home. We had to employ a shipping company. The truck had to be taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then put on the Ro-Ro ferry to Liverpool which took eight days.
From there we had it transported on a low loader to Inverness. We went down to Inverness with Colin Sutherland who assembled the chrome stacks (exhaust pipes) which were removed for the journey on the boat. Then we drove it home to Barrock, Thurso, which took a long time as we stopped at a few places for people to see the truck.
When we got it home we had to start to clean it as it was very dirty after lying in the show and also the time on the boat. It took a while to get it cleaned and a lot of hard work. We used 10 packs of Brillo pads as the wheels and tanks were all original.
we had added a lot of lights and stainless steel. J.G.C in Halkirk made us a scoop to go on the roof and we bought full back wings from Canada as it only had half wings when we bought it.
We had Elvis murals and our names put on it but we have since changed these. Dan has always wanted an American truck. He also has a Chevy S10 pick up truck.
When he drives the Peter he thinks he is king of the road. He loves this truck as it is the last of the 63 sleeper and long hood. Some
people in America and Canada use these as drag racers.
It is big, black and beautiful. It looks like some of the trucks in films. This was an original working truck which hauled oil related stuff from Texas to Canada and pulled two trailers. It was then sold to Ken Surgrue who delivered goods to such places as Walmart and all over Ontario. Ken retired this truck and got three freightliners.
All of the drivers wanted to drive the Pete. This truck was parked up for six months and was in good condition. It just needed a clean up and we have added a lot of lights. We now have more than 200 lights and we also added more stainless steel. We got the cab upholstered and the seats recovered and we now have a wooden floor with 24 lights in it.
We go to truck shows with it such as Truckfest Edinburgh. We have been to the Shetland show twice. This year we were invited to Ireland to the Mid Ulster show.
It is a charity show run every year. We then went to Cavan in Ireland to the Full of the Pipe show and we also do local shows. We went to Dunnet Head, John O’Groats to Lands End in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and RNLI.
When Dan had his 70th birthday party five years ago he collected money for charity instead of getting presents. We also did a run right around the coast of Ireland to visit all the lifeboat stations. When we go to shows we always take a charity collection box.
The truck is good to drive once I got used to left hand driving. It can be a bit tight on our roads as they are very narrow but it is not so bad when we got further down the road.
We get a lot of attention as people are surprised to see the truck as most people have only seen these trucks in films or TV. We did a friend’s wedding in Stornoway and we think it could have been the first American truck on the island.
We also used it at our daughter Alison’s wedding in Wick and granddaughter’s wedding in Pitlochery. The truck was also on Johnny Bremner’s DVD which was recorded at Dunnet Beach. We would love to do a film with the truck.”
First truck:
Austin BMC FFK
Dream truck:
Peterbilt and also our Renault Magnum