In August 2007, when we were on the scene in the backyard of Douglasville, Ga., owner-operator James Duncan, former owner of the original B.J. and the Bear Kenworth Paul Sagehorn, along with his father, has restored, Duncan promised Sagehorn he’d crate and deliver the balance of parts that had come loose from the vehicle over the years. After several scheduling mishaps, Sagehorn caught a load in late March this year that took him near Duncan’s place, so he dropped by and picked them up himself. When we were in the Sagehorns’ Sparta, Wis., home base March 31 he’d just returned from that haul – that’s Duncan’s crate you see sitting on a step deck attached to the Sagehorns’ 1984 B.J. K100 replica. The almost-stripped frame (left) is the original 1980 in progress.
When we reported on Wisconsin owner-operator and vehicle restorer Paul Sagehorn’s purchase of an original B.J. and the Bear Kenworth K100 tractor in our December 2007 issue, former owner James Duncan, whose Georgia backyard had housed the tractor since he quit running it in 1988, ended the piece on a note of hope. “They’ll turn it into something special,” he said.
Paul Sagehorn, with his father, Craig, has done just that. The newly restored truck made its show debut in July at the Iola Old Car Show in Iola, Wis., and can be seen this month at the Waupun Truck’n’Show in Waupun, Wis., Aug. 8-9.
Hard-core restorers like the Sagehorns view their jobs in a singular way: “It’s like bringing buried treasure up from the deep,” says Craig, owner with Paul of the Ace Hardware in Sparta, Wis. Both men have under their collective restoration belt several cars, including four 1980s Pontiac Fieros, a 1958 Plymouth Belvedere made to resemble the car used in the John Carpenter film Christine, a 1955 Ford Crown Victoria and a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Convertible and Fury, among others. But it’s their latest project that’s been most worthy of the sentiment.
After they began taking the Kenworth apart, it wasn’t long before the Sagehorns could appreciate the treasure trove of history they’d uncovered in the process. Duncan had already pointed out to them the “Hi B.J. & the Bear” tag on the inside of the driver-door panel, accompanied by several signatures of folks who presumably worked on the build. Then, down on his knees below the frame, Paul was loosening something directly under the fifth-wheel assembly and happened to look up. “All of a sudden, I could see these bumps,” he says, on the bottom of the fifth-wheel mounting plate.
After removing the fifth-wheel assembly, he got his sons Hank and Wyatt involved in sanding down some of the corrosion that had built on the bottom of the plate, and pretty soon they all realized they were looking at the signature of a welder, who’d written almost the same message inscribed in the door, signed with his claim of ownership of this part of the build, “By W.S.”
“Bill was a welder back then on the line,” says Tom Hice, test mechanic at Kenworth’s Chillicothe, Ohio, plant, where the K100 was built. He’s referring to William Sorrell, who left his mark on the Sagehorns’ K100. “Anytime we do one of those trucks, it’s kind of a special thing,” Hice says. “We’ve done quite a few for different programs. We built four for a James Bond movie.”
