2016 GATS Best of Show winner, Limited-Mileage Bobtail: The Premier 359

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Updated Dec 21, 2016

This profile is part of a multi-week series in which Overdrive is publishing stories on the six Pride & Polish National Championship winners — crowned in August at The Great American Trucking Show — and the five best of show winners from the event. Click here to see more profiles.

Best of Show, Limited-Mileage Combo | Marty Colvin’s 1986 Peterbilt 359 and 2016 Etnyre TankerBest of Show, Limited-Mileage Combo | Marty Colvin’s 1986 Peterbilt 359 and 2016 Etnyre Tanker

Owner-operator Kary Bryce out of Sibley, La., founded his now-116-truck fleet as a single-truck owner-operator in 1988 with a Peterbilt 359, and he’s always had a few nice 359s running in his operation, he says.

Perhaps now his most-famed 359, however, he bought in 1996. He’s put a million miles on the ‘86 359 himself, and he’s rebuilt the rig as a custom working rig several times. But now, the truck has hardware to back up Bryce’s efforts, having picked up Best of Show at this year’s Great American Trucking Show.

“It stayed parked for two years, and we decided to tear it down and start building on it again,” he says. That was six years ago. Since, “Smoking Section” had been under construction at 4 State Trucks in Joplin, Mo., as the canvas for the gamut of custom truck features. The name came from both Bryce’s father, a smoker who always referred to the back of the truck as “the smoking section,” and the truck’s original Caterpillar, which has always puffed a little black smoke.

“It’s clean and classic,” Bryce says of the rig. “I’m proud of it.”

Click here to see the full list of winners from the 2016 GATS Pride & Polish show.

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