PowerTorque is in New Zealand this week as part of the process of presenting the Truck of the Year Australasia at the New Zealand Transport, Association, Technical Maintenance and Safety Conference in Christchurch and came across this pure trucking nostalgia.
It is not often that, on this website, we indulge in the kind of looking back at days past, but this particular video is so well made and invokes such a pleasant series of emotions for those with a bit of old school trucking in their blood, that it couldn’t be ignored.
This video is not only very well-made, but also, evokes that kind of nostalgia around which the trucking industry has developed its own culture. The reference point for this particular video is the W-model Kenworths, Snowman’s truck from Smokey and the Bandit. The black and gold Kenworth captivated a young Auckland-based Charlie Bailey, who’s now built himself the ultimate show truck on a Kenworth W925AR Legend: The Bandit – complete with a Pontiac Firebird and a load of Coors.
The style of the truck, the paintwork, and of course the musical backing evoke an era, which has long past, and which, in many ways, we need to keep confined to the past
Although many in the trucking industry would admit to having nostalgia for the period of time in which trucking was much more individualised, and, in someways, a renegade working culture, we have to admit that now, trying to replicate that culture in the modern world is not only inappropriate, but it is also dangerous.
However, it can be very pleasant for those of us have been in the trucking industry, for longer than we care to remember, that these kinds of images, the soundtrack and the implications of the movie and the video, do evoke emotions about the trucking industry, and the way things used to be that can only be described as pure nostalgia.
So, forgive me, as someone who tries to refrain from referring to themselves as a veteran trucker, but watching this video does evoke emotions about enjoying the pure trucking culture without the constraints of the more rational and common sense approach which we need to use today’s trucking environment.
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