Cokeville, Wyoming-based Cody Davis, owner of three-truck Davis Trucking LLC, hauls livestock across the U.S. with this 2022 Kenworth W900L and accompanying 2023 Merritt livestock trailer.
Davis showed the combo last month at the 2023 Shell Rotella SuperRigs working truck show in Gillette, Wyoming, where it won in three categories -- the Tractor-Trailer Division, Best Chrome, and Best Lights. Davis’ rig also won the People’s Choice Award after a public voting period.
It's easy to see why the truck won Best Lights at the show.Photos and video by Matt Cole
With just 18 months with the rig in service, Davis and company have already put 300,000 miles on the rig hauling livestock. "As long as it walks on there, we'll haul it," he said.
While he does haul coast-to-coast, mostly he stays West of the Mississippi River, given the 14-foot height of his stacks and trailer. "We're pretty tall for going out East," he said. "They frown upon it, so we stay out West, pretty much."
The truck is full of custom work, ranging from the bumper to the fenders, and everything in between.
The bumper and fenders were from I-29 Custom Truck Parts and the grille with the company logo cutout was made by SH Tube.
Additionally, the visor and lift bumper are from 12-Gauge Customs, and much more.
Inside the rig, most of the interior was done by Two Bee's Upholstery, with a floor from Rockwood.
PDI Diesel out of St. George, Utah, added their exhaust and intake kits onto the 605-hp Cummins and accompanying 18-speed.
To get shined up for the show, Davis used Express Pressure Wash in Nampa, Idaho. To get his 2023 Merritt livestock trailer polished, Davis said it took four people two full weeks to get done.
[Related: 'Back in Time': Kentucky-based owner-operator's 1989 Freightliner FLC 120]
Catch plenty more views of the truck in the video up top. For more videos and custom-equipment features delivered to your email inbox, subscribe to Overdrive's weekly Custom Rigs newsletter via this link.
Cody Davis: My name's Cody Davis, Davis Trucking. We haul livestock coast-to-coast all over, mostly the Midwest, West.
Well, it's a '22 Kenworth W900. It's got a '23 Merritt livestock trailer behind it that we've fully polished out. Truck-trailer run every day. I mean, it's only 18 months old, we got 300,000 miles. I mean, she moves. So she cleans up good, but it's a work truck first. We got tons of custom stuff on it, custom bumper, custom deck plates, custom interior. I mean, we've really put the works to it and it shows.
When I ordered it, it's pretty much like it's set up, pusher axle, all that, the color, we ordered it that way. We really did base kit when we ordered it from the factory, it didn't have fenders, didn't have a bumper. It was pretty basic because we knew we were going to put everything on.
So picked it up. I flew up to the factory, picked it up right off the floor. We drove it down to PDI Diesel, St. George, Utah, and we built the truck there.
So we got a custom bumper, a I-29 Customs out of Sioux City. They're the ones who hooked me up with that and the fenders, they do all that stuff for me. The custom grille, we had a SH Tube, they made that for us. Got 12-Gauge visor chops on there, 12-Gauge lift bumper. Interior, that's Two Bee's mostly, with a little bit of other stuff that I found and put on there. Rockwood, we got the floor from them, painted it, put it in there. The dash was all pieced together with bits that I could find and painted it all to match.
Got PDI's kits, exhaust, intake, air intake, all that on there. All my polishing and all that's done by Express Pressure Wash out of Nampa, Idaho. They're the ones who polished this trailer out for me, guys did a bomb job. Yeah. Dynaflex exhaust system, steps. Yeah, there's just a ton of custom stuff on there.
We're running a Cummins 605 and then we got an 18-speed transmission in it.
We probably had two months we were putting it together, making it right, and then we've added on here and there after that too.
