Horse and Buggy Express small fleet owner John Rissler in this week's Custom Rigs series video shares the story of two Sovereign Blue trucks part and parcel of his family's last quarter century trucking. The models have just a few years between them, a 2000 and a 2003 Kenworth W900, both outfitted with 6NZ Caterpillar engines paired with Super 10 transmissions -- "I learned fuel mileage works pretty well ... with that combination," Rissler said.
The 2000 model he ordered from the factory after a bargain with his wife, Karen: If she went out and got her CDL to go OTR with Rissler, as he told it, they'd get a new truck with a more sizable sleeper. Or, alternately, they'd take a trip to Hawaii. Karen picked the truck -- "her baby," Rissler calls the 2000, and she "picked wisely ... The next year we went to Hawaii. So she got both," ultimately.
Catch more views of the 2000 model Kenworth in the video up top. It's shown here at the site of the Crossroads Shopping Plaza, home of John Rissler's Horse and Buggy Accessories chrome. Today, he and the family are trucking less and less as he focuses most closely on the aftermarket parts business, whose story is told in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast. The truck was on display at the Crossroads Truck Meet truck show, where we caught up with John May 3 this year.
John and Karen Rissler and their children's names are printed on this stainless piece on the 2000 KW's doors, likewise on the second, 2003 big-bunk unit.
John was prepping to outfit the rig with a big custom sleeper, even to the point that he bought another truck to run while the daily driver was down, getting the upgrade. Yet then he saw an ad for a nearly identical Sovereign Blue Kenworth, an '03 model, pop up already outfitted with a 120-inch ARI big bunk. It was a bank repo, and in pretty rough shape, as he tells the story in the video.
When he saw the truck in person in Kentucky, "I told the bank they're crazy," he said, considering what they wanted for the truck.
Turns out the federal government agreed with him, of a fashion. "They shut the bank down" shortly thereafter, he said. "It was over a whole bunch of other stuff," but providence has a way of working things out, he figured. He got the truck he wanted. And after a months-long process of reskinning the sleeper to reflect his family's faith, and a variety of other custom work put in, the truck now boasts more than a million miles put on the odometer under the Risslers' tutelage.
The sleeper today features a striking waterfall-and-forest mural on the rear, along with bold scripture references from Joshua in the Bible and the message along the driver's side: “Jesus -- the reason you have a choice.”
The 2003 KW was parked up next to a fan-favorite cabover at the Crossroads Truck Meet show -- stay tuned for more in the coming weeks about that project 1977 Peterbilt 352 of Coolie Callahan, son of the proprietor of longtime livestock hauler Criss Cross Trucking of Jacksonville, Missouri.
"That's history," John Rissler said, reflecting on the decades gone by with these trucks, show-worthy after all the years and the miles (the 2000's got 1.8 million on the odometer).
[Related: Owner-operator Troy Bolin's rare Cat 3408 V8-powered 1979 Peterbilt 359]
John's younger brother, Paul Rissler, headquartered like John down the road from the site of the Crossroads Truck Plaza there in California, Missouri, came out on top of Overdrive's Small Fleet Championship last year for his steady stewardship of Paul Rissler Transportation. Both men have followed in the footsteps of their father's own long trucking legacy. Keep tuned for more from Overdrive's visit to PRT headquarters, and put your own fleet in the running for this year's Small Fleet Championship. Fleets of 3-30 trucks are eligible.
Enter the Small Fleet Champ competition -- final deadline in July -- via this link.
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