Ripe & Ready: Correction and update

This beautiful photographic spread in the October issue of Overdrive escaped the offices here with a distinct blemish in its very first line — subscribers, folks picking it up in truck stops around the nation have no doubt noted the error, corrected in the pictured version above. There is, of course, no “1974 Peterbilt 379” in the picture or anywhere in the world, really. We meant “1994,” it’s true, and this banana yellow rig is indeed of that mid-90s vintage.

Fortunately, last weekend I got the opportunity to deliver my personal apologies to the rig’s owner, here pictured at the show I attended on Saturday out in Cookeville, Tenn. Ronnie King was customarily laid-back about it all, not least because, well, he was about to tell me of yet another “error” in the story: He didn’t own the rig anymore. Between the last time we talked to him and the story’s publication, a potential buyer emerged and, given the existence of a project 1978 Peterbilt 352 double-bunk cabover King had been just waiting for an opportunity to tackle, he sold his haul rig to focus on shop work for the time being.

Now, an Illinois hauler is the proud owner of Ripe & Ready.

Big congrats to him, eh? Following a few extra outtakes-type pics from the photo shoot with King’s former rig, beginning with a portrait of King with his granddaughter, Brynna, to whom the truck was partly dedicated. Enjoy.