Cumming, Georgia-based Kimball Transportation pulled the 1996 Kenworth W900L featured here out of the weeds about eight years ago with the intention of rebuilding it to put it to work in the company’s open-deck business.
Owned by Adam Kimball, the company runs five trucks pulling mostly conestoga, flatbed and RGN freight. The fleet also has four other trucks that are primarily show trucks, including this ’96 W9.
Jackson Spencer's been helping out around Kimball Transportation since he was 14. These days, he's into light mechanical work and more for the company at 18, hoping to jump into driving for Kimball when he turns 21.
Jackson Spencer
Spencer was on hand with the Kimball team at the 2024 Stars, Stripes and White Lines Truck Show at Atlanta Motor Speedway last fall, where he walked through some of the custom work put into the impressive Kenworth.
When the truck was first pulled out of the weeds, Spencer said it was in pretty rough shape with “rats in the dash, and the coolant was brown. It was just a mess.”
The truck was originally planned to be built to work, but Kimball's team “went a little crazy with doing it up, and it’s been sitting in the shed for a while,” Spencer said.
“I think the initial two or three years of it was getting it ready to work, and then something happened and we got another truck and put a driver in it and slowly did things to this, and it kind of turned into this show truck,” he added.
The paint was originally a dark green color, and Spencer said Kimball wanted to go with the 007-style paint scheme but with his own flair.
Kimball’s work trucks are mostly painted blue, so the team incorporated the blue into the striping and “put our twist to it and our own style,” Spencer said.
Apart from the paint, Kimball also added a 22-inch 12 Gauge front bumper, added lights throughout, wrapped the fuel tanks in stainless and more.
Kimball did want to keep some of the truck original, particularly the interior, which boasts Kenworth’s premium Seattle package.
“The inside is completely untouched,” Spencer said. “It’s all the original interior. That’s one thing we made a point to leave. It’s a Seattle package, so it’s something special about it.”
Under the hood, the rig features a rebuilt Cummins N14 with just 30,000 miles on it, with an 18-speed and 3.55 rears.
“We tried to keep a lot of the original stuff on the truck and kind of freshen it up other than the paint and stuff like that, obviously,” Spencer said. “But the wheels, interior, it came with an N14 from the factory, so it's just kind of freshened up and made cool again.”
At the show, Kimball Transportation's W9 was hooked to a 50th-anniversary Trail King Advantage Plus! hydraulic gooseneck.
[Related: Pristine low-mileage 1997 Peterbilt 379 emerges after 18 years in storage]
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.
Jackson Spencer: My name is Jackson Spencer, based out of Cumming, Georgia, and this is Kimball Transportation. So we do a lot of Conestoga, flatbed, pretty much anything, sometimes van stuff or RGN, just a little bit of everything here and there.
So I started when I was 14-ish, just kind of cleaning on the trucks, and now I'm doing oil changes and brakes and tires and the basic stuff like that, but do a little bit of everything now.
So it's a '96 W900, it's got a N14, a brand new N14, and it's got 30,000 miles on it. It's got an 18-speed 3.55 rear ends. And I mean, we pulled it out of the weeds eight years ago and kind of, we built it to work it. That was originally going to be one of our driver's trucks and kind of went a little crazy with doing it up and it's been sitting in the shed for a while.
So it used to be green, like a darker green color and all just the normal sitting, there was rats in the dash and the coolant was brown. It was just a mess. So kind of got in a little deeper than I think he had intended to, and now it's here. It's completely changed everything.
So he wanted to do the 007, the actual that goes up the sleeper, but he didn't want to copy it too much. So our color is blue normally, so we kind of put our twist to it and our own style.
So it's got a 12 Gauge, 22-inch bumper, I believe. We put lights on it just before this show. We put this picket bracket light and then the lights down there on the bumper. It's been a long, over the last, what, eight years. We've kind of done things here and there, so I got to remember, I don't see, this truck doesn't leave much, so it's been covered up for the last year or two in the shed.
The inside is completely untouched. It's all the original interior. That's one thing we made a point to leave. It's the Seattle package, so it's something special about it. We got Iowa Customs mudflap weights, stainless wrap tanks, Brunner boxes. These are the original wheels, just polished. We tried to keep a lot of the original stuff on the truck and kind of freshen it up, other than the paint and stuff like that obviously. But the wheels, interior, it came with an N14 from the factory, so it was just kind of freshened up and made cool again.
We intended it to work and kind of had it built to be able to work, and now we put the front end on the ground and it's more just a show truck now. You can't do, you could work it, but it's just a lot easier just to have it sit and not worry about it. I think the initial two or three years of it was getting it ready to work and then something happened and we got another truck and put a driver in it and slowly did things to this, and it kind of turned into this show truck.
