Kenworth's celebration of its 100th anniversary began in January of 2023. Officially, it's been over for going on two months now, but a couple of different pieces of that celebration -- one close to home, the other about as far away as you can get -- came across the proverbial transom recently.
The first? Atlas Heavy Haul's Bubba Branch and his 1996 Kenworth W9 were profiled in Kenworth's "100 Stories" series, hosted on the company's Youtube channel in the playlist at this link. Branch's W9 regular readers will recall from our 2022 profile of the rig, yet my oh my, what a truck. Always a welcome distraction to crowd out the stress of a long week headed into some time off, I'd wager. Nice to know "Just a Phase," as Branch calls the truck, is still a phase, as it were:
Second, New Zealand-headquartered photographer (and so much more besides) Rod Simmonds was kind enough to share a few windows on a big 100th-anniversary celebration in his native New Zealand, where KW trucks are sought after and, from the looks of it, as celebrated as they are among fans in the United States.
Simmonds noted the early February truck show coincided with the weekend preceding Waitangi Day, like the U.S.'s July 4, this year, with set-up day for the show starting Thursday, February 1, at the Mystery Creek Events Centre after organizing work put in by Southpac Trucks, the sole Kenworth distributor in the country, Simmonds said. "Probably 100 trucks parked up by day's end," yet by 11 a.m. the next day, "another 150 trucks were in."
It turned into an absolutely massive affair over the course of the following six hours, then.
A grand total of 756 trucks would fill available space in the events facility by the time evening rolled around, "all expertly marshaled and measured by Southpac staff," Simmonds noted. "Some 10,000 people attended the free 'public day'" the next day, Saturday, a hardcore truck fan's dream.
Simmonds said Kenworths have been in New Zealand for more than half a century at this point, "with early models privately imported for logging operations" and "sourced from Kenworth Canada, where the specification was more similar."
Virtually all New Zealand Kenworths today are built in the company's Bayswater plant in Victoria, Australia, he added, and "tailored to suit the unique N.Z. conditions, axle loadings and weights."
New Zealand may be a small country -- little old N.Z., Simmonds called it -- yet clearly there's huge Kiwi passion for KW.
Every Kenworth model ever "sold in New Zealand was represented" at the show, ultimately, Simmonds said, "from the 1950s early imports to brand-new T909s, C509s and SARs. Wall-to-wall Kenworths, all lovingly looked after, bling-blinging like never before."
Here's a big thanks to Rod Simmonds for sharing this with us, and you. Here's hoping it takes you off to a great weekend.
[Related: Kenworth continues 100th-anniversary celebration with truck parade]