“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” wrote poet John Keats. In the case of repeat Pride & Polish winners selected for Overdrive’s 2005 calendar, 13 things of beauty will be a joy for 13 months. Sponsored by Mobil Delvac and packaged with this issue, the calendar is the first part of our Pride & Polish 15th anniversary celebration. Though other truck shows have sprung up around the country since Overdrive held its first Pride & Polish, we believe our show draws the best of the best to what has become its home, the Great American Trucking Show.
Our editors have taken a personal approach to presenting these amazing rigs and their owners. You’ll find a variety of photographic perspectives: indoor and outdoor, daytime and nighttime, inside and outside the cab. We’ve included photos of the exhibitors, too, some of whom are as colorful as their gleaming trucks.
“When an old woman gives you a thumbs-up, you’ve got to be looking pretty good,” says Neal Holsomback, a truck show veteran. Then there’s Texan Billy Hopkins, who prefers a simple Western touch over gaudiness. “We don’t do ghost flames,” he says. “We do barbed wire.” And gourmet-trained Dwight Tindall, whose hobby of cooking doesn’t get in the way of sprucing up a 1996 Peterbilt 379: “I do love my little red truck.”
There’s more to come on our 15th anniversary celebration, both in the pages of Overdrive and on eTrucker.com, starting in 2005. Until then, my thumb’s up for all the hard-working owner-operators who spend so many hours and dollars to spiff up trucks that the rest of us get to enjoy.
–Brad Holthaus
