Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Jade Transport company driver Barry Kasdorf showed off the fleet’s brand-new, special-edition 2023 Peterbilt 389X -- No. 47 of 1,389 that will be built this year -- at the Shell Rotella SuperRigs working truck show in Gillette, Wyoming, in June. The rig picked up a second-place trophy in the Working Truck -- Limited Mileage class.
At the time of the show, the truck had just 15,000 miles on it. "Fresh out of the box," Kasdorf said. Kasdorf's worked with Jade for close to 21 years, hauling chemicals -- "no food-grade, no fuel," he said -- all over the U.S. and Canada, staying out between one and five weeks at a time. The Jade fleet features about 80 trucks, a number of which are heavily customized like Kasdorf's 389X.
[Related: Throwback 359-style design on Jade Transport’s 2021 389 Pride & Class]
Jade Transport owner Larry Dyck's sons, David and Jonathan, are the owners of custom truck parts manufacturer Shift Products. Upon delivery of Kasdorf's 389X, the truck was outfitted with a number of Shift accessories, including this breather light bar. Other Shift additions on the truck include the heat shields on the stacks, the deck plate, and the rear fenders. Jade also added the orange pinstriping on the rig.
The paint scheme in part stems from another truck Kasdorf said he'd seen for sale at Peterbilt Manitoba -- it was a similar color. He snapped a photo and sent it to his boss, asking if the green would fit with the rest of the fleet. Most of Jade's trucks are emerald and forest green units. He didn't get a solid answer at the time, but when the 389X arrived, he was surprised to see it was the color he had suggested.
One thing Kasdorf added to the rig himself was the paint work on the door sill plates to match the striping on the truck's exterior. "It brought the colors to the interior a bit," he said. Otherwise, the interior is mostly stock, aside from a custom shifter.
Under the hood, the truck is powered by a 565-hp Cummins with an 18-speed transmission and 2.23 rears. Kasdorf said at 65 mph, the truck is "just idling along" at around 1,300 rpms.
Kasdorf and the teams at Jade and Shift also added a number of lights to the rig, mostly underneath the truck on the frame rails. Melon lights are placed every three feet on the rail. Kasdork can change the color of an additional light with a switch in the cab.
[Related: Livestock feed hauler’s high-powered 2008 Peterbilt 389]
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.
Barry Kasdorf: This is a 2023 Peterbilt 389X, which is the last of the 389. So they're a numbered truck. This one is truck 47. It's actually a privilege to be able to drive one. My name is Barry Kasdorf. I haul chemicals for Jade Transport. Yeah, anything. No food grade, no fuel. So pretty much anything else liquid is fair game.
We're based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. This coming October will be my 21st year. We've got 565 Cummins with 18-speed transmission and we're running 2.23 gears in the back. So it's long-legged. Basically at 65, you're only doing 1,300 RPM, so it's just idling along. This one only has 15,000 [miles]. So she's fresh out of the box.
Well, it's the boss's two sons [who own Shift Products]. They started up the business and their whole deal behind it was to make a better product that were more usable. When they first started, they introduced carbon fiber fenders for the weight, like less weight. So they're trying to get weight off the truck, but yet be a good-looking product. But they're still into the fenders and then custom panels or whatever, and lights. But it's like a chrome shop deal.
The heat shields on the stacks are theirs. And then the light bar you see by the breather, that's theirs. And then they fabricated my deck plate in the back that encloses the frame rail. And then the fenders in the back are also theirs. The ones across the drives are a shift product.
With the X, there was a number of lights that came on it already part of that package. So we just added to that and then... But we kept the very clean and we tried not to make it look cluttered. A lot of the lights you don't see until nighttime. During the day it doesn't look like it's got much, but yeah, at night it really lights up. So every three feet on the rail there's a melon light, so on both sides of the frame rail from front to back. And then beside, there's another light, which I can program from in the glove box, and it'll change colors. They've got those beside every melon light all the way down.
