WILD SIDE OF LIVESTOCK
“It knocked a couple of hours off the job with that S2.”
IMUST ADMIT that, when I first spotted the Wild’s Livestock twin-steer Kenworth, it blew me away! It went straight to the top of my ‘I’ve got to know the story behind that’ list. I thought it was going to be such a cool restoration story.
I was so wrong. You want to know why? In order to be a restoration story, the truck has to have been restored! It turns out that the Wild’s Livestock truck has never stopped; it has not had time for a restoration, it is just a hard-working iconic truck.
The truck did get a little down time when the motor was first replaced with a couple of million kilometres on it. Since then, the big girl has racked up another million-plus kilometres. All up, there is over three-and-a-half-million kilometres on a truck nearing its 30th birthday.
I may not have been able to get a restoration story out of owner and driver Ian Wild, but I was certain I would still get some interesting tales. In fact, I got some very ‘wild’ stories. My apologies, I will try hard to avoid any more puns.
Wild’s Livestock’s history can be traced all the way back to 1928 when Ian’s dad, at a mere 13-years-old, left school and became a drover. His first droving job saw him assisting in the relocation of 350 Hereford bulls from Jandowae down to Ipswich.
