Semi-retired small-fleet owner Lynn DeNeve started his DeNeve Enterprises LLC business 33 years ago, but trucking wasn’t on his radar at the time. It was a mowing and lawn care operation back then, eventually expanding into removal.
Yet he was also working the family farm, which needed a truck to haul grain. “That’s how I got started in my first truck,” he said.
Lynn DeNeve
“After being in business 33 years, I wanted to have a little more time at home with my family and enjoy a little bit, so I got rid of the rest of my trucks,” he said.
DeNeve’s work truck he plans to continue running for the foreseeable future. And he had no plans to purchase a new truck for a while, yet when Peterbilt announced it was retiring the iconic model 389, he reached out to his salesperson at GTG Peterbilt in Cedar Rapids, Peterbilt Kate, to make sure he got one of the last ones before they were gone.
“I told her I wanted to get on the list,” DeNeve said. “And it ended up being one of the last. We came down the last week of December before shutdown to watch it get built, so it’s one of the very last ones that got built.”
He ordered it how he wanted it from the factory with a unique silver and green paint scheme. He took his time on that color combo -- the decision took about six months -- and he’s “thrilled with how the color combination worked out. I haven’t really ever seen one quite like it.”
He noted that the green he used for the frame and accents on the rig is one that he hasn’t seen much of on other trucks.
He took possession of the rig in January and took it to HD Equipment in Grand Mound, Iowa, for some custom work.
The finished product earned DeNeve an invitation to Peterbilt’s invitation-only Pride & Class Parade in Denton, Texas, in October.
The build at HD Equipment took about six months and entailed the addition of somewhere around 86 new watermelon lights on the exterior, about two dozen green lights inside the truck, an EZ Pete interior, new step boxes, painted mirror brackets, a new front bumper, 379-style headlights.... “I kind of wanted it to be a clean look,” DeNeve said. “I don’t have a lot of extra stuff just added to it. I like just a real clean, but well put together truck. So that’s what they did.”
The rig is powered by a 565 Cummins with an 18-speed and sits on a 290-inch wheelbase.
The truck’s interior matches the exterior, with the same silver and green scheme.
“I always like shine, I like my work truck and hopper shiny,” DeNeve said. I like clean, shiny, lots of lights." DeNeve said he plans to keep the rig garaged for a while, mostly just taking it to truck shows on occasion. When he brought it from Iowa to Denton for the Peterbilt show, it only had 500 miles on the odometer. He'll take his 2020-model up to around a million miles while the '24 is parked for show -- six-to-eight years, he guessed.
“Then this one will be a pretty unique truck, to have a brand-new 389 I can pull out of the shed,” he said.
Then, he figured, he'd "drive it the rest of my life after that.”
The amount of lights on DeNeve's rig can be seen more clearly here, as the truck rolled through Peterbilt's Pride & Class Parade in October.
[Related: Iowa-based Dylan McCrabb's head-turning '24 389X]
Find plenty more views of the rig in the video up top, and for more videos and custom-equipment features delivered to your email inbox, subscribe to Overdrive's weekly Custom Rigs newsletter via this link.
Lynn DeNeve: Lynn DeNeve. Company is DeNeve Enterprises LLC, and we're based out of Victor, Iowa. As soon as Peterbilt announced the 389s were going away, I got ahold of my sales lady, Peterbilt Kate at Cedar Rapids Peterbilt there, and told her I wanted to get on the list to get one of the last ones. And it ended up being one of the last. We came down the last week of December before shutdown to watch it get built. So it's one of the very last ones that get built and kind of had it all ordered how I wanted it.
And then once we got it home, took it to HD Equipment, Grand Mound, Iowa, and they did all the build on it, did all the customization to it. So it's a Cummins 565, 18-speed, 290 wheel base. And like I said, HD did all the custom stuff, kind of gave them an idea and they took it and ran, and they did an amazing job with all the work they did to it.
So I haven't counted them, but I believe there's 86 watermelon lights on the outside. There's 24 green lights on the inside that they did. We did EZ Pete Interior, they painted quite a bit of the interior to it, then they put step boxes on it, mirror brackets, like I said, all the lights and they painted all the brackets. The front bumper, put 379 headlights on it. I kind of wanted it to be a clean look. I don't have a lot of extra stuff just added to it. I like just a real clean, but well put together truck. So that's what they did. And then Tadlock Brothers out of Iowa City, they do all my polishing. They spent about three or four days on it, polishing everything, get it cleaned up good.
So we spent six months trying to pick the colors. We didn't know which colors to pick and how to put it together. And you start out with a book and then they spray things for you. And it turned out way better than what we ever dreamed. Having the color combination that it is, everybody really likes how the colors turned out on it. And yeah, that was tough trying to, you only get one chance and it took us, the sales lady, Katie, she was after us after about six months, she's like, you have to finally get a color picked out. So it took us a while, but we're thrilled with how the color combination worked out. So I haven't really ever seen one quite like it, I guess, but didn't really pick it off of somebody else's truck. We just was putting color together and came up with it. So yeah, the interior as the same color, silver, gray painted on the inside. Then the EZ Pete on the doors is the same green on it.
So I always shine my work truck and hopper shiny. I like clean, shiny, a lot of lights. So that kind of went with this truck as well, keeping that clean look, but a lot of lights on it and keeping it shiny. So like I said, thrilled how it turned out, I just had an idea and when I ordered it, I didn't know what it would be because I just wanted one before they were going to quit making 'em. And they kind of forced my hand to do it a lot sooner than I ever wanted to. But now that we got it, I'm glad I did.
But yep, it's pretty well done now and it's just going to be, it's my retirement truck, what I call it. So I'll probably just shed it for the next eight or 10 years. This is actually its first show, so we got it there at Peterbilt, came in last January and we got it done from HD and the end of July, 1st of August. And just been sitting in the shed until we brought it down here. So we left home and it had 500 miles on it. Yeah, it's just going to sit. Besides some shows we're going to take to Louisville next spring, just to have the experience to take a truck there once and a few other shows I'll go to. But pretty much just going to be parked, I don't know how long, I'm hoping six, eight years.
I'm going to run my other one up over a million miles and wear it out first. And then this will be a pretty unique truck to have a brand new 389 I can pull out of the shed at that time. There won't be very many brand new 389s left. That's why I wanted something really unique to be able to have that in the future and then drive it the rest of my life after that. So kind of my last, so everything works out. It'll be my last truck and kind of neat to have a 389 to be able to say that I can do that with.
