With every year that goes by, seeing a pristine Peterbilt 379 gets a little more rare. After all, the model has been retired now for 17 years. At the 2024 Stars, Stripes and White Lines Truck Show at Atlanta Motor Speedway, though, a mint 379 is just what was on offer.
Brought down from Norwich, Ontario, the 1997 model Pete owned by Sunrise Equipment Auctions had just recently been pulled out of the barn it sat in for the last 18 or so years, according to Doug King, who was showing the truck on behalf of Sunrise and owner Stan Hamulecki.
King is more than familiar with the unit, as he built the truck working as a mechanic at Peterbilt Motors Company 27 years prior to his showing it last Fall. He said Sunrise pulled the truck out of the barn in the Spring of 2024 and “did general maintenance. We put 10 new tires on it. We dropped all the fluids out of it to bring it down here.”
He said the truck “rides like the day it was brand-new. Not a squeak, not a rattle. Everything works as it should.”
The truck was originally built for Mark Gunter -- today the owner of Skillex Inc. “We stripped it right down to two frame rails. He said chrome or paint everything, and here we are,” King said. It worked part-time in its first few years of life, but at the time of the event in Atlanta, King noted it would roll over 120,000 original miles on its way back to Canada.
Everything mechanical about the truck is still just as it was the day it was built, with the original 475 Cat engine, 18-speed transmission and 3.55 rears. “Nothing has really been changed or modified in 25 years other than general maintenance just to make it roadworthy to get it down here,” he noted.
Every part of the engine, like the rest of the truck, is either painted or chromed.
The truck was originally painted gray but repainted to the Iris base layer that’s on it today when it was custom-built for Gunter.
The airbrushed mural on the hood, featuring a wolf howling at the moon, was done when it was built in the 1996-’97 timeframe, King said.
The airbrushed farm scenes on the side of the sleeper were done in 2007 for the truck’s current owner.
“The man that owns this, they're in the auction business and he is a John Deere fan,” King said of the reasons for this driver-side airbrush work.
Inside the rig, the hardwood floor and all the accents are from Rockwood, supplied when the truck was built.
The Rockwood floor and accents look just as good today as when they were placed in the truck.
“The bezels on the dash, the extensions, the Rockwood door pockets, the floor” are all original to the truck, King noted.
The rest of the interior is all original, King said, with the exception of the seats, which “would have had probably black or burgundy leather seats that would have had the Peterbilt [logo] in the headrest.”
King said a lot of the custom stainless accessories were made at the time by Dieter’s Accessories, which is now owned by Panelite. Shield Truck Accessories out of Aylmer, Ontario, also provided a number of custom adds.
King said the rear fenders, from Hogebuilt, and all the other custom touches on the rig are from the original custom build.
Just like the rest of the truck, the 475 Cat is also painted and chromed to match the exterior.
The hood even features a window on each side to offer a peek inside the engine compartment to see the outstanding work done on the engine.
[Related: 'Why So Serious?': Joker-themed heavy-haul 389 shows out]
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Doug King: Hi, my name is Doug King, and I'm here representing this 1997 379 Peterbilt that's owned by Sunrise Equipment Auctions in Norwich, Ontario, Canada. I built this truck 27 years ago as a mechanic for a Peterbilt Motor Companies. It's been in our barn probably for almost 18 years of the last of its life. We got it out early this spring.
We did general maintenance. We put 10 new tires on it. We dropped all the fluids out of it to bring it down here. I'm 800 miles from home, and this truck rides like the day it was brand new. Not a squeak, not a rattle. Everything works as it should. The doors open and close the way they should. Every key and every lock works.
He wanted everything done. The owner, which was Mark Gunter but now is owned by the Hamuleckis. We stripped it right down to two frame rails. He said chrome or paint everything. And here we are. 27 years ago. The coveralls that I wore back then still fit to this day. Yeah.
It's a caterpillar 475 and it's original. So it's all matching serial numbers. So it's not like a different motor that we had to change ten years ago or five years ago.
All the accessories on the inside is pretty much from day one. Nothing has really been changed or modified in 25 years other than general maintenance, just to make it roadworthy to get it down here. The hardwood floor, all the accents. Rockwood made that stuff years ago. The bezels on the dash, the extensions, the Rockwood door pockets, the floor.
A lot of this stuff back then was all custom made because they weren't doing that. The man that made a lot of this stuff, he sold, his name was Dieter's, was the name of the company. He sold to Panelite, which Panelite is still around to this day.
The tractors and stuff, because now the man that owns this, they're in the auction business and he is a John Deere fan. This is all airbrushed. This was airbrushed in 2007. Yeah. The mural on the hood was from 96 to 97.
Matt Cole: Is the base paint color, is that original Pete color?
King; No, it's called Iris. Everybody calls it purple or whatever, but it's Iris. This truck originally was gray, and then he completely painted it and did the themes and stuff on the doors.
Yeah, the whole interior is basically original. And then we just added all the little accents and things. Had to make sure we had John Deere bedding in there. It originally was 244 wheelbase, and then they stretched it to 280. The other manufacturer that did a lot of stuff for us with Shield out of Aylmer. Their logo was the actual shield, like a badge. So that's what that means.
The tank covers the wrap tanks, the tank skirt, Hogebuilt fenders. Back then, they didn't have the aluminum fifth wheel or the Teflon slider. You would buy the two piece Teflon from Holland. You would take the stainless washers. You would put it in the center, you would weld it, and then you would take a socket and you would hit it to get it tight.
Original fenders. Like I said, pretty much most of all of this is original from 27 years ago.
Cole: So did it ever work in the first 6 or 7 years?
King: Yeah. When it goes home, it'll hit 120,000 miles. So in the metric system, that's 200,000km. So it did work. And the man that owned this 27 years ago is my boss to this day, Mark Gunter.
But Stan Hamulecki owns it now. And then he comes to our shop and sees a lot of stuff, and he just said, hey, let's get some of these toys out and start playing with them again. So here we are.
