Florida-based owner-operator Wayne Trent primarily transported boats out of Florida into other states with his Advanced Mobile Marine business before his retirement within the last couple of years.
Trent was hauling boats at one time with a Ford Super Duty between Florida and Arkansas, 1,000 miles each way, and he realized he “needed a little bit heavier truck, but I didn’t want to buy a semi. So I went out and looked at new trucks and priced them." He didn't like what he heard on that front -- "people are crazy," he said -- so "I decided to build my own truck.”
The “Super Duty was killing me in fuel,” he said, and “grossing 30K-32K with the older-model dually just wasn’t working out. ... I just wanted a stronger truck. And going on the road for two or three days at a time, I wanted the sleeper.”
Trent’s hobby has always been old cars -- building something wasn't out of the question. For this project, he looked for and found an old Ford C-500 cabover in Kansas that was a farm delivery truck.
From that 1953 base Ford C-500 he fashioned this finished rig from parts of other trucks, cars, vans and even boats.Photos and video by Lawson Rudisill
From there, the build process was a builder's take on the Johnny Cash classic “One Piece at a Time.” Trent took a little over three years to complete it with his friend Dan Toll, as they compiled parts and pieces from more than a dozen vehicles. Trent’s always been a Johnny Cash fan, he said, and actually had the opportunity to meet Johnny’s brother, Tommy, who autographed the glove box, “and he said that Johnny would have really been proud.”
“One Piece at a Time” is also the truck’s unofficial nickname, as it’s displayed on the back of the sleeper. The official nickname, however, is “Big Blue.” Trent noted he usually shows the truck at local car shows and not big shows like the Mid-America Trucking Show where it was on display in March. At the car shows, “I’m the biggest thing there,” he said.
After bringing the old ’53 Ford home to use as the cab, Trent found a wrecked 1996 Freightliner FL-80 fire truck in Canada that he bought and cut in half to use as the front frame assembly. Then he found a Ford Super Duty “with a bad motor, cut that truck in half and made the two frames together.”
Wayne Trent with his boat-hauling truck built "One Piece at a Time."
That gave him the Dana 80 rear end he wanted for “highway speed, because I built it to run in the hammer lane,” he said.
He pulled the engine out of the Freightliner fire truck -- an 8.3-liter C-model Cummins that is “right at about 325 horse and 925 torque.” It also has a double-overdrive Allison automatic transmission, which Trent said at 90 mph in the second overdrive, it runs at 2,000 rpm, reiterating that it's built to "run in the hammer lane. ... Running fully loaded, I generally cross the scales about 30- to 32,000 [pounds], and she’ll get 10 to 12 miles to the gallon all day and runs about 15 to 16 empty,” he said.
When it came to the engine, his philosophy was to “put the biggest motor I can stuff in it,” he said. He connected with Dana Corporation during the build and asked for “the tallest set of gears that you ever built.” The parts advisor on the other end of the line “kind of chuckled and she said, ‘Well, we built a set of 3.11s, but nobody could twist them.’ And I said, ‘send them to me, I can twist them with 925 torque.’”
He said over the 400,000 miles he put on the truck before retiring it two years ago, he’s “broken two rear ends in the truck. It’s on its third rear end, but that’s almost 400,000 miles. That’s the weakest link in the whole truck is the rear end. But it still does the job. It gets out and runs, and it does a real good job.”
The truck’s sleeper was donated by a Western Star that Trent found in Louisiana. He said he wanted the stacks in front of the sleeper to give it an old school look, so “that’s what I did with that sleeper.”
The service bed is off of a mechanic’s truck that he bought at an auction in Tampa.
The truck was on the road for about 18 years and served as not only his work truck, but also his everyday driver. He put extra windows in the sleeper to help with visibility. He also took the bunk out of the sleeper and put in a couch that folds into a bed that he dug out from a Volkswagen camper. There's a sink and mini-fridge in the sleeper, too, “so when I’m traveling on the road, I got the amenities I need to get by.”
The truck also features parts pulled from Lincoln, Mercury, BMW, Chevrolet, Mercury Outboard, Force Outboard, Johnson Outboard, Dodge and Jeep -- even a Minn Kota trolling motor. The full rundown of which parts came from what can be seen here:
Overall, putting all the parts together from various manufacturers “was a bit of a hassle,” Trent said. He has a lathe and a milling machine in the shop where he built the truck, and he had to make numerous adapters to make things fit. Yet most everybody he runs across loves the truck. That is, except for officers at the scales.
“When I pull into the scale house, they give me a fit," he said. "I’ve been on the scales as long as 45 minutes before, having to go over this truck with a fine-tooth comb.”
The truck has four-wheel disc brakes that Trent pulled from the loaner Super Duty. He took the air brake system off and instead runs a hydraulic booster from the power steering pump in the Super Duty.
“So it does have four-wheel disc brakes, and several of the DOT people asked me that. They would give me a red light, and I would pull in and the guy would come out and he’d say, ‘What kind of brakes on that old truck, driver?’ And I said, ‘It’s got four-wheel disc.’ And they said, ‘Have a nice day.’ And that was the end of it. But I guess they were… a lot of the guys come out with an attitude because the truck’s old, it shouldn’t be on the road. That’s their philosophy.”
Hear plenty more about the one-of-a-kind build in the video up top.
[Related: Rare 1981 'Midnight Eagle Brougham' International cabover fully restored]
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Wayne Trent: I built it at my boat dealership. My scrap yard out back was all boat related. I have Johnson/Evinrude outboard parts on it. I have Minn Kota trolling motor parts on it, Mercury outboard motor cruiser. I have BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Lincoln. There's one part off a Cadillac.
My name is Wayne Trent. I live in Hudson, Florida. My company name is Advanced Mobile Marine and I transport boats mostly out of Florida and other states. And, the truck is retired. I retired it about two years ago. So now it has antique insurance and antique tags, and I just use it for truck shows now.
Yeah, well, what got it started is I had a Ford Super Duty that I was using in my business, in my boat business. And I started transporting my own boats out of Arkansas from Florida, a thousand miles each way. And, I needed a little bit heavier truck, but I didn't want to buy a semi.
So I went out and looked at new trucks and priced them, and I thought, their people are crazy. So I decided to build my own truck. And I love the old cars and and, that's my hobbies, old cars. So I went looking for an old Ford cab over, and, So I ended up finding this in Kansas.
It was a farm delivery truck, and I bought it. I brought it home. I found a fire truck in Canada, a wrecked fire truck, Freightliner FL-80 and bought that truck, brought it to Florida, cut it in half. And then I found a Ford super duty with a bad motor. Cut that truck in half and made the two frames together.
That gave me the Dana 80 rear end I wanted for highway speed because I built it to run it in the hammer lane, and then the engine, still sitting in the original Freightliner frame. It has an 8.3 Cummins C model Cummins mechanical injector pump, and it's, right at about 325 horse and 925 torque. It has an Allison automatic transmission with two overdrive in it, and it, second overdrive at 90 miles an hour, she turns two grand at 90. So I built it to run in the hammer lane, running fully loaded, generally cross the scales about 30, 32,000, and she'll get 10 to 12 miles a gallon all day and runs about 15 to 16 empty. And it's been, it's been a great truck. It's a lot more fun to drive than a white Ford orderly down the road.
The sleeper itself came off of a Western Star. I found it in Louisiana, and, I wanted the stacks up front because it was old school. I put the windows in the sleeper just for visibility, just to give me better visibility. I took the bunk out of the sleeper, and it has a couch. It folds out into a bed that actually came out of a Volkswagen factory camper. One of those campers that they made. And I have a sink in it. I have a mini refrigerator in it. So when I'm traveling on the road, I got, you know, the amenities I need to to get by a lot of people question me about the tanks on the underneath the sleeper. It has three fuel tanks on it, so I carry about 118 gallon usable fuel, and I can run 1,100 miles between fuel stops with no problem.
And that's what I did with that sleeper and the, the service bed as a mechanic's truck. I found that in Tampa at an auction and the, of course, the engine came from Canada, so I made it all together a little over three years to build it. Me and a friend of mine built it, and a little over three years to build it.
Some of the people laugh about my gauges in the truck, but I monitor, of course, I monitor coolant temperature, transmission temperature. I have a gauge for the rear differential, and I have a temperature gauge for both my outside wheel bearings. I lost a wheel bearing in Alabama. Once lost a set of duals, came completely off of it. So I said I want to end that problem.
So I put temperature sensors so I can monitor all the temperatures as I go down the road. So the people comment like, what's all these gauges in this truck for. So I just like gauges, brakes, the board. I'm on a long trip. I did cut a big hole in the floor and I took a full sized Dodge van doghouse, cut the whole floor out of the Dodge and laid it into this Ford cab.
And I couldn't believe it fit perfect. The bends on the metal. You swear they come out of the same mold. And, so it does have a Dodge doghouse in it. That way I can access it from the inside and and access it from the outside also. And the other unique thing is this right here that's called a traffic light finder.
That was real popular in the 40s and 50s with cars that had visors on the front. I can pull up to a traffic light, and if the traffic light is directly over my windshield, I can see the traffic light in the prism. The armrests are off a mustang off of a mid-'80s Mustang. The door handle wouldn't fit in here, so I used the window crank to open the door.
Oh, it shoots flames. Yeah, it shoots flames. Yeah. So I'm pumping propane through the stacks, and I actually I come up through the sleeper with my line and come into the stack so you can't see it. And I can get about four-foot flames on propane. And I named it after Johnny Cash, the song that he wrote, about One Piece at a Time, where he worked for General Motors and he stole a Cadillac one piece at a time and took it home.
So I named it in his honor. And I did get to meet Johnny Cash's brother Tommy Cash, and he autographed the glove box for me. And he said that Johnny would really been proud.
I decided that nobody's going to get it. No family members are going to get it. My family doesn't appreciate anything old. It doesn't have a computer keyboard man on the dash, they don't want it. So I'm going to donate it to, I'm between two museums. I'm sorry I haven't made up my mind yet, but I'm leaning towards Iowa 80 if they'll accept it, because it's a modified truck, I assume they might. I don't know, they may not because it's modified.
