CADILLAC OF TRUCKS
“I wanted the 379, I wanted the extended hood, I wanted the 70-inch Unibilt sleeper.”
I’m sure anyone who has read any of my previous stories understands that I love starting my stories with quotes. Often they even relate directly to the story. More often, they relate indirectly to the story. Today’s quote goes directly to the source of the love affair and dare I say Peterbilt addiction that has led us to the beautiful big Pete you see on the pages before you.
Let me explain by reciting the quote first: “A good friend will bail you out of jail, a great friend will be sitting beside you saying, ‘damn, we f***ed up’.” The reason it resonated with me when I started writing this story is that it made me think.
On that sliding scale of friendship described in this quote, where would you rate a mate who accompanies you on a lastminute trip to the Iowa 80 Truckstop in the US and then sets you up with a ride in a stunning 379 Peterbilt. That ride creates a desire and determination to own one.
That desire and determination would then lead to your long-planned family holiday getting hijacked for a 1,500km detour in order to check out a second-hand Peterbilt. A secondhand Peterbilt that you would then purchase and spend the next three years dedicating all your free time to restoring and rebuilding.
With all that information I again ask, on the quoted sliding scale of friendship, where would you rate the mate responsible for all of that?
Jason Whitty is the man with the Peterbilt addiction and Matty Easter is the friend that launched that Peterbilt addiction. Jason would rate him as “a bloody good mate” while Jason’s wife Nobuko might be a little
