The Love of the Collectible Conventional

The Australian truck market in recent years has seen the love of the collectible conventional increase among those who can afford to dabble with vintage trucks and keep them on the road, as part of their business.

This particular video stars one of the bicentennial Macks, one of the first releases of nostalgic trucks made in Australia, and one which was able to fire up the imagination of the trucking community here. In recent years, the Kenworth brand has released a series of highly collectible conventional trucks which operators line up to buy as a badge of honour.

This particular Mack Superliner, the Captain Bligh, is also collectible because it is powered by the legendary Mack V8 engine, the sound of which still stirs the heart of even the most casual observer of the trucking industry. That sound is truly a thing of real beauty.

The Vernice operation is, in fact, a civil construction and heavy machinery operation, a sector which depends on and loves its trucks. The real enthusiasm these people have for their truck is palpable, as they tell their story.

Looking forward to the future, it is hard to try and pick which trucks in the current crop will achieve this kind of status. However, as long as there are people who love their trucks and don’t mind getting their hands dirty, lying on a workshop floor with a piece of a truck transmission lying on their chest, this sort of collectability will continue.

Even further down the track, we have to ask as to whether there will be the same kind of nostalgia, in fifty years time for an early electric truck. We certainly won’t be getting nostalgic about the noise it makes heading down the road!