Black Creek, Wisconsin-based Kevin Voigt has been around trucking his whole life and has been doing it himself as an owner-operator since he graduated high school in 2000.
He grew up on a small dairy farm with his father trucking in between chores on the farm. Around the time he was in second grade, his family sold their cows and bought trucks to haul cheese, primarily on the East Coast and in the Midwest. He’s been doing that type of work for most of his career since, but recently diversified the Kevin Voigt Trucking business to move building supplies, storage units, garage doors and machinery.
After high school graduation in May of 2000, he went to Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin, to earn his CDL. Establishing his business then, he hauled cheese in Wisconsin until he turned 21 and was able to move freight out of state. He’s stayed pretty regional throughout his career, often running to Missouri, the Chicagoland area, and Ohio.
At the time that Overdrive caught up with Voigt at the 2025 Mid-America Trucking Show, he owned four trucks -- including the 1998 Freightliner FLB cabover featured in the video up top -- and had 10-12 under his authority “through a network of family and very tight friends,” he said.
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Business, Voigt noted, has “been tricky” of late, but overall he feels “very blessed. We have a couple of very, very tight dedicated customers.” Rarely does he have to dip into the spot market for freight because those customers “keep our wheels turning.”
Voigt bought the ’98 FLB after he attended MATS in 2016, where he “caught the truck fever and went home the next day and bought this thing,” he said. The truck's nickname, “Never Finished,” pretty well describes what's followed. “It’s never been finished since we brought it home.”
He works the cabover in the summer months, typically keeping it parked between Thanksgiving and mid-late March each year.
Before the latest updates to the FLB, an accident set it back -- a car drove into the driver’s side of the rig. At MATS this year, Voigt noted that between those repairs and the time it takes to source parts for the unit, it “took us a little longer to get it finished this time, but we’re getting close and getting excited to try to use it again.”
It had custom features before the crash, but since it needed the work anyway, “we probably turned up the dial just a little bit,” he added.
The deck, half fenders and rear T-bar remain as they were the first time Voigt and company went through a series of modifications.
Those parts were custom made by John Becker with J&B Welding in eastern Wisconsin. “He was the guy that was like, ‘Hey, we can do this and make some cool metal art on this truck,’” Voigt said. “That stuff is still all there.”
Total Appearance in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, recently redid the paint on the truck. Most of the custom-build was done by Nick Kimball at AmCan Truck Parts in Pewaukee. Kimball “has been a huge help,” Voigt said. “Really shared a lot of his vision in helping me put this truck back together and take it to the next level.”
Voigt said he likes keeping his trucks “clean, cool and classy,” and Kimball “really helped me with that.”
The rig is powered by an N14 Cummins that’s been tuned up some, coupled with a 13 speed and 3.42 rears.
As Voigt explains in the video, he swapped out the 12 Gauge Customs visor that was on the truck when he bought it for a fiberglass Freightliner visor like what would have been original to the truck. He also added a 12 Gauge air-ride kit, which “took some head-scratching and engineering,” he said, as air suspensions weren’t made for FLBs. The grille was engineered to look like the original grille, too.
Randy Martin with Spare Time Fab redid the interior.
Voigt wanted to keep it close to original, so kept the factory dash and fashioned new interior close to the truck's stock look.
Other custom touches include bigger fuel tanks, a stationary fifth wheel, the aforementioned deck plate, half fenders and T-bar. Overall, “we've been adding pieces and parts as we went since 2016,” Voigt noted. “It's been a lot of fun, and we will see what happens, where it goes from here. ...
"We're not done with it yet.”
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Kevin Voigt: This is a 1998 Freightliner FLB. I was here at MATS in 2016, caught the truck fever and went home the next day and bought this thing, and it's never been finished since we brought it home. We're based out of Black Creek, Wisconsin, just 10 miles north of Appleton, Wisconsin, 25 miles west of Green Bay and been home all of my life.
So I usually work it in the summertime. I haven't worked at too many winters. The last new Pete that I call my winter beater, I had to work it in the winter because Peterbilt didn't have that one done. But other than that, we try to park it in the winter time from basically Thanksgiving into March. And then I would drive this in the summertime.
We had a little mishap with a car, drove into the side of it, wasn't our fault, but things happen on a nice sunny day and we had some repairs and, well, parts take a little longer to source for this fun truck, so took us a little longer to get it finished this time, but we're getting close and getting excited to try to use it again.
The main look is still the same. The deck plates, the half fenders, the rear T-bar, all of that stuff was all custom made by a guy lives up eastern Wisconsin there. John Becker, J&B Welding did all of that. He was the guy that's like, "Hey, we can do this. Make some cool metal art on this truck." That stuff is still all there. The paint was all currently redone down at TA in Pewaukee, and most of the truck was all assembled by AmCan. Nick Kimball has been a huge help, really shared a lot of his visions and helping me put this truck back together and take it to the next level. Nick's a real neat guy and has a real vision when it comes to keeping trucks clean, cool, and classy. And that's really what my tastes are. We have an N14 Cummins in it.
It was originally an N14. It was set at 460. With their tuning and help, we did bump it up a little bit. It's followed with a 13 speed and 3.42 gears. So you lock that thing at 1300 RPMs and a little over 60 mile an hour down the road and just takes the freight right where we need to go. Everything's original. When this truck was originally spec'd, they got the spec sheet, it was spec'd out of South Bend, Indiana, and it was originally purposed as a car hauler. So the guy that I bought it from kind of had it mostly converted and then we tweaked it and finished it up and made it look like it does today. But originally it had a rack on it and was pulled with a square frame off the back. I could show you about where the bruises, where the U-Bolt still used to be, where the rack would've been clamped at a frame, but we never had to stretch the frame. We never had to do nothing. It was a factory 227 and hasn't been all cut up.
We had to massage it back into shape after that rogue car tried to show it a lesson, but we got it back. So we went back to original Freightliner fiberglass visor. We had an original, it was a 12 Ga. visor on it and we wanted to go back to the more factory look, so we took some time to massage the visor back on there. We tried to keep it fairly simple, but one of the biggest things that we did add to the front of this truck was a 12 Ga. Customs air ride kit. Yeah, they don't make air ride kits for these FLB Freightliners, so it took some head scratching and some engineering, and we had to move a lot of lines and do some things. They had to reshape the springs to get it to sit level as you see it today.
That was really Nick. We asked a bunch of people and everybody kind of laughed and said, "I don't think so," but Nick was able to take it on and make that happen. We did add a, I said, "I don't want just a piece of stainless up here," and 12 Ga. was actually able to replicate what looks like the factory Freightliner grille that was on there. I wanted it to look like a Freightliner or like the grille should have looked, and they built that all out of stainless now and really added a sharp look to the truck. So we're real happy on how that turned out.
We redid the interior here. That was all done by Randy out at Spare Time, did an awesome job with that. Really, really looks good. We very happy with it. We wanted it to look nice but not over the top.
Wanted it to look like it did when it was still a Freightliner. We left the factory dash, it's still all original Freightliner. We didn't rip it down. We didn't do nothing. I wanted when you open the door, I wanted it to say to the guy that drove that back in 1998, say, yep, that still looks like the truck I drove in '98, and it's a beautiful interior. Freightliner did a very nice job of making interiors back there when you upgraded them and this had the plush interior in it, and we wanted to keep that. We added, did change out and put matching seats in it and some of them things, but insulated the cab and put all new interior in it and very, very happy with the way that turned out.
I'm told there's only a handful of these sets of steps around, but they were able to rebuild these steps. The last steps got tweaked a little bit by that car that actually drove in head first right here. And the fuel tank was full of course, so it didn't crush like an empty can. It kind of threw me sideways with a full load and you got, oh well, could have been worse, but nobody was hurt. Everybody walked away. That was a huge blessing and I really, really respect and count my blessings. That could have ended a lot worse, and it was just paint and it was all fixable, now looking back. So, didn't see that right away when it happened, but now you're like, "yeah, look at this," and we come back better than ever, I hope, anyway. So this was kind of John's creation, custom fuel straps with 150-gallon tanks. When I got it, it had smaller tanks on it, but well, when you got to get the freight delivered, you can't stop for fuel all the time.
So we put bigger tanks on it. We put brand new Dynaflex exhaust on it, six-inch exhaust. A lot of the deck plate was all made by John up in Wisconsin, the customized battery box cover. He Frenched that in and has that backlit now. So at night it looks pretty neat. Freightliner's all lit up and kind of gives the truck a unique look and something that you could come by and say, "yeah, I'm proud to still drive a Freightliner and we love the truck."
The rest of the truck was really the way it was before the wreck. We did put a stationary fifth wheel on it since the wreck. Before we had a slider on it. But black and water and dust, it's hard to keep 'em clean. So my wife and my kids help wash this thing all the time and we wash with real good water.
So it's nice to just be able to blow it off and back it outside and have it looking cool. So we put a fixed fifth wheel on, tried to keep it a real clean, easy wash. So we just run half fenders. It's simple. I hooked to some different customer trailers. We own seven trailers, so we wanted to stay with the steel fifth wheel that if I hook with somebody hooked up with grease, we got to get the work done first or that's what pays for all of this fun stuff. So other than that, everything has been, was kind of the way we massaged it or it's never been finished. So we've been adding pieces and parts as we went since 2016. So it's been a lot of fun and we will see what happens where it goes from here, but we're not done with it yet.
