Ball Ground, Georgia-based Zach Held is a company driver for five-truck Kimball Transportation based out of nearby Cumming, Georgia.
Looking at Held's truck, however, you'd never guess it was a company truck. Kimball owner Adam Kimball leases his five trucks on with Landstar, and they haul mostly flatbed and conestoga freight working with rigging companies in the Southeast.
“We’ll haul new machines, old machines, plant moves,” anything that will go on a flatbed, Held said.
Kimball puts priority on a family-oriented atmosphere for his drivers, so they primarily stay regional, closer to home in the Southeast. Held hauls out to Texas and Oklahoma a good bit, and occasionally up to Ohio, but generally stays fairly close to Georgia.
Zach Held
The 35-year-old Held has been trucking for 13 years, the last seven of which have been with Kimball.
[Related: Kimball Transportation's '96 Kenworth W900L, built for show]
Early in his tenure with the small fleet, he pulled with a Freightliner, and Adam Kimball told him if he’d stay in it a couple of years, he'd build him the truck he really wants.
Kimball and Held are close friends outside of work, so they’re often sending pictures back and forth of rigs they do and don’t like, discussing preferred parts and features. Kimball was keeping track of Held’s likes and dislikes, and one night invited Held and his family over for dinner.
When they arrived, the 2005 Peterbilt 379 featured in the video up top was sitting in Kimball's driveway. As Held told the story, “I said, ‘Man, did you buy a new truck?’ And he goes, ‘That’s your truck.’ So, it was cool.”
Held brought the truck to the 2025 Shell Rotella SuperRigs working truck show at Atlanta Motor Speedway at the end of May, where it picked up a second-place trophy in the Classic Division.
The truck features hand-pinstriping by Reynolds, Georgia-based Chastin Brand. Held said Brand didn’t plan out the designs, he just put them right on the truck, and both sides of the rig are nonetheless identical. Held described the artist sketching out only the lettering on the doors and boxes to make sure they were centered. He also did some pinstriping inside the cab.
Held and Kimball generally like the stock Peterbilt interiors, so only made some minor changes, including gauge covers and toggle extenders, along with the paint work from Brand.
The 379's powered by a 550-hp ACERT Cat with an 18-speed and 3.36 rears, also featuring plenty of custom parts -- most of which are from 12 Ga. Customs. As Held explains in the video, the mirror brackets, bumper, grille, grille shell, visor, boxes and sleeper panels are all from 12 Ga. The truck boasts Dynaflex stacks and Hogebuilt rear full fenders.
Most of the rear of the unit is outfitted in stainless -- the Brunner headache rack, 4 State Trucks deck plate and the fenders. “You almost need sunglasses to be at the back of the truck,” Held said.
He almost asked Kimball to go with black double-hump rear fenders, but he felt moving away from stainless would take away from the look of the rear as it is now.
[Related: 'Dollar Bill': Impressive 1982 Peterbilt 359 powered by Cat C18 marine engine]
For more videos and custom-equipment features delivered to your email inbox, subscribe to Overdrive's weekly Custom Rigs newsletter via this link and access all videos in Overdrive's Custom Rigs Youtube playlist below.
Zach Held: So it's a '05 379. It's Medium Rich Blue. The fenders are Black Sable Metallic. It's got a 550 ACERT in it, 18 speed with 3.36's.
So I'm Zach, I drive for Adam Kimball. We're out of Cumming, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. We do flatbed stuff, conestoga work, pretty much anything. We work with a bunch of rigging companies around. So I mean, we'll haul new machines, old machines, plant moves, and then I mean anything.
We bought the truck probably five years ago, I think. We got the truck and it was painted. And it's actually a funny story with this truck. I was driving a Freightliner for Adam, and he told me, he said, "Hey, if you stay in the Freightliner in a couple years, we'll build you a truck. What you want." Cool. We'll do that.
Me and Adam are best friends. We'll send each other trucks here and there throughout the day. "Hey, I like this. Hey, I don't like that." And he actually took notes and built this without me knowing. So he built the truck, called me one day and said, "Hey, y'all, come over to the house. We're grilling out burgers." And this was sitting in his driveway. I said, "man, did you buy a new truck?" And he goes, "that's your truck." So it was cool.
But when he went to pick it up, there was a bunch of orange peel on it and he thought, "man, I'm going to have to repaint this whole truck." So he took it, when we got it back here, we took it to a detailer and it stayed in his shop for a month and a half. And he wet sanded and polished and buffed and wet sanded and polished, buffed.
And it's still, I mean, you can see your reflection in the paint. And that was four years ago. But we don't go through truck washes. We wash every weekend. Adam's son, that's his job. We got another kid that washes and they wash the trucks every Saturday by hand. Gets polish on it pretty much every other week when need be. So I'm lucky in the fact that I get to drive this cool truck and then get to park it and go spend time with my family on the weekends.
The pin striping was all done by hand by a guy here in middle Georgia, Chastin Brand. He's out of Reynolds, Georgia. He did silver leaf on the lettering. It was actually pretty cool. I spent like 11 hours at his house and he would do a line and stand back and look at it and walk over to the truck and just duplicate it. He never took a picture, never took any measurements, never nothing. And just, I mean, both sides are identical. The only thing he sketched out or took any measurements was the lettering on the door and the boxes, just so he had it centered and everything was right.
We got 12 Gauge mirror brackets. We got a 12 Gauge bumper. The grille, grille shell, all that's 12 Gauge, visor. Dynaflex pipes, 12 Gauge boxes. All the sleeper cab panels are 12 Ga. The interior, we just kind of kept, we always think that Peterbilt has a cool interior to begin with, but we just dressed it up a little bit with gauge covers and toggle extensions. And Chastin actually pint stripped a lot of it. Did my steering wheel and stuff like that. Just little stuff. Dress it up a little bit.
But I did a road skin tank wrap. We had the tanks painted black and decided, well, let's change it up a little bit and put the stainless tank wraps on it. And did a Brunner APU cover, Hogebuilt fenders. We just kind of wanted the back shiny, so we got 4 State deck plate with a big Brunner headache rack on the back. And so I actually thought about having Adam do black double humps on it, but it takes away if you stand at the back of the truck and it is just all, you almost need sunglasses to be at the back of the truck. And we kind of looked at it and said it would take away from it. So we decided to go with Hogebuilt full fenders and it protects everything. We do some job site stuff. So with half fenders, you get that rear axle throwing stuff and just try and keep it, keep it shiny, keep it clean, and keep it looking good going down the road.
