David McKinney has always been “a Peterbilt guy,” dating back to when he was young and had two cousins who were truck drivers.
One of those cousins had “a brand-new ’87 [Freightliner] FLC, and I just thought that was the coolest thing,” he remembers, but Petes were always his favorite trucks.
The love of the red oval led McKinney to where he is today, owner of the McKinny and Sons Transfer fleet of Petes hauling flatbed freight out of his Lexington, Alabama, home base.
David McKinney
McKinney’s trucking career started when he was 21, not long after his family moved from Southern California to North Alabama. “When I turned 21, to get a good job, you had to know somebody, but I wasn’t from there and didn’t know anybody,” he said. “So trucking was the best thing I could do, and it’s always been good to me … and it’s always fed my family. We’ve seen some hard times in it, for sure, but for the most part, we’ve always come out the other end, and everything’s worked out great.”
He worked for another company for a year before in 1996 or ‘97, at 22, he bought his first truck -- a 1985 Peterbilt 359 extended hood -- and leased it on with the company he had been hauling for.
He's come a long way since, that's certain.
Today, McKinney doesn’t drive much himself, handling most all of the fleet's back-office work. His drivers pull flatbeds out of North Alabama up into Tennessee and Kentucky and back and are home every day and off on weekends.
Four generations of show-quality, long-hood Peterbilts
The 2025 Peterbilt 589
McKinney's 589 features some added lights and a few other custom touches to give it an old-school look.
McKinney’s a big fan of glider kits given past issues with emissions systems on newer engines, but with gliders now harder and harder to come by, he went last year to price out a used glider compared to a brand-new Peterbilt 589.
“The glider kits are gone, and what you can find are outrageous,” he said. “So I called my dealer and asked what we could build a truck for. We got it in six weeks for not a hell of a lot more than you can buy a used glider kit for.”
He designed the paint scheme on the truck to pay homage to a friend, the late Troy Huddleston, who was a big fan of Freightliners. The striping on the 2025 589 is an old Freightliner stripe scheme.
“I just think it looks cool,” McKinney said of the paint scheme. “It was a super nice truck" when he bought the 589, and he "didn’t go over the top" with customizations on it.
[Related: A man who constantly 'raised the bar higher': Remembering owner-operator Troy Huddleston]
In addition to the paint, he added hubcaps, half fenders and lights, but otherwise it’s mostly stock. At the time of SuperRigs in May last year, it hadn’t hauled a load, but it was slated to pull its first the day after the show ended.
“I’m real proud of it,” he said. “I think it’s the way these 589 hoods are cut and all that they kind of resemble an old FLC, and so the Freightliner stripe went well on it.”
The rig features a Cummins X15 with an 18-speed.
The interior is mostly stock apart from a few knobs added to match the exterior colors of the truck.
While Pete's evolution from the 389 to 589 didn't always make longtime Peterbilt devotees happy, McKinney said the newest generation rig is “the most driver-friendly truck I’ve ever been in,” adding it “drives like a pickup truck.”
The 2018 Peterbilt 389
David McKinney's 389 out at SuperRigs
He purchased the Detroit 60 Series-powered 389 glider featured here in the summer of 2024 out of Wichita, Kansas, from a farmer who fell on hard times and just had to sell it. With low miles on it -- roughly 340K -- McKinney flew out to Kansas to drive it back to Alabama.
McKinney had a shine for the Evergreen Frost paint color, and he had Lady Lines Pinstriping come and hand-paint a gold leaf stripe with a green stripe underneath all the way around the truck.
He also swapped out wheels, added lights, half fenders, bigger stacks -- “just did a few things to it, not a whole lot, just to make it a cool truck,” he said. “But it’s a work truck. Truck works every day, and I just love the color.” And like all of McKinney’s trucks, he added a swan hood ornament and grab handles on top of the grille.
The rig features extra lights, including some amber underglow.
The 1994 Peterbilt 379
This truck is the pride of McKinney’s fleet, not only because it’s a beautiful 379, but it helped pull him and his company back from bankruptcy.
At 26 years old early in his career, McKinney filed bankruptcy and “lost everything but our home,” he said. His banker worked with him to finance this ’94 Pete, though at a premium interest rate up around 20%.
“It’s not a crime to be broke, but it’s just damn inconvenient,” he said. But he bought the truck and set about repaying the loan hauling chips to a paper mill for a little while before he was able to purchase a flatbed.
He worked the rig six days a week, and it “was just a great truck,” he said. “It never tore up.”
It's equipped with a 425-hp Cat with a 15-speed and 3.90 rears. “It’s not a super fast truck, but this truck is just steady, worked every day,” he said.
Originally outfitted Peterbilt’s American Class interior, which McKinney said was “a lot nicer truck than an accent-interior truck. … When you open the door and seen an American Class, you knew you had something. So out of all these trucks from a 359 up to a 589, as far as aesthetics, that American Class dash, that square dash, American Class and all the leather interior ... I think that’s just beautiful. That’s just the nicest Peterbilt ever did.”
The 379 was wrecked at one time in its life before it was rebuilt into what it is today. “It’s always the same colors, but we did a bunch of extra stuff to it after it was wrecked,” McKinney added, including different fenders and some other upgrades.
Part of those changes: he was talked into putting in a hot rod interior. It’s never been the same to McKinney, and he said the next thing he was going to do to the rig was put an American Class interior back in it “because that’s what a truck, to me, is supposed to look like. That’s what I like.”
As his business started growing and McKinney came off the road and into the office, he put another driver in it and bought the 359 that’s also featured here.
McKinney's 1986 Peterbilt 359
He's owned the oldest of the four units he had on display at SuperRigs for about 12 years. The previous owner had passed away, and he bought it from that man’s daughter.
Brown when he bought it, McKinney had the truck repainted and modeled it after one he'd known back in the day working in Tennessee.
“It was this color,” the charcoal gray and silver that’s on his truck today, “painted up just like this truck, and I always thought it was just a cool truck," he said. "The way the stripes are laid out, which, it’s kind of overdone with the fenders all striped and all that, and I thought it was just a Cadillac.”
The 359 works today with a part-time driver in it. It works three or four days a week, usually, depending on that driver’s schedule.
They recently had the truck at Gebhardt Enterprises in Illinois, where Chris Gebhardt put in a new interior. It also got a tilt column in it and they big-holed the sleeper to make it more driver-friendly. It’s equipped with a 425-hp Cat with a 15-speed and 3.55 rears. The rig, McKinney said, “can get on down the road pretty good. It does a good job and it’s fun to drive.”
It’s still equipped with the original headlights, and in addition to the updated paint scheme, McKinney added visor lights, breather lights, fenders, new fuel tanks. He had 4 State Trucks build new boxes that look original.
“This is period correct,” McKinney said. “This is what it was like in ’86 or ’90. This is what you seen back in the day. We didn’t do anything crazy. Everything is what you would have seen back in the day.”
The truck impressed the judges at SuperRigs, earning a third-place trophy in the Classic division.
[Related: Kenny Ziglar's 'Scrapin' By' 2007 Peterbilt 379 wins top honors at SuperRigs]
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David McKinney: I am from North Alabama. We pull flatbeds out of North Alabama, up into Tennessee, Kentucky, and right back every day. So my guys are home every day and off every weekend. So we're just five days a week, just flatbeds. We run about 18 trucks.
We've got some really nice trucks. And then these trucks here just that we brought today are just work trucks. I'm a glider kit fan. And just for emissions more than E-log or anything like that. Well, the glider kits, they're gone, and what you can find are outrageous. So I called my dealer and asked what we could build a truck for. We got it in six weeks for not a hell of a lot more than you buy used glider kit for.
So, I had a good friend of mine who was a Freightliner guy and he could tell you all the Freightliner stripes and all that. He passed away a couple of years ago, Troy Huddleston. And so Everett Ford drives for me now. And this was kind of a collaboration of all of us, my son and all of us. So we were talking about it, I said, I really want to put a Freightliner stripe on these 589s. So we ordered it these colors and then took it to Peterbilt in Nashville and they striped it up, put a Freightliner stripe on it. I just think it looks cool. It's a super nice truck. We didn't go over the top with this truck. We striped it, put some hub caps on it and half fenders and lights. But it's going to work. I mean it'll load Sunday night. So this is its first trip out. It doesn't have any miles. It's got 500 miles on it now, but I'm real proud of it.
I think it's cool the way these 589 hoods cut, all that, they kind of resemble an old FLC. And so the Freightliner stripe went well on it and it's kind what we did. It'll go to work Sunday night. So we like kind of a neutral color. And then, so there's an old picture, you see it floating around social media of a cab over Freightliner FLC, and it had this scheme on it, but they were kind of neutral colors. So Peterbilt give us a book and it's full of paint colors in it. And so we'd look through it, looked through it, looked through it. So my wife actually, you had to put your frame color in it and then she picked these two, the top and the bottom. I said, I don't know if that red will go. She said, it'll look good.
And everybody bucked me on the orange, and I said, we're going to put the orange on it. I didn't tell anybody, we just had 'em laid out orange and it come out, I think it come out really super cool. So it was kind of a collaboration of all of us, Everett and Dill and my wife. So we just kind of all laid it out and that's what we come up with. We just picked it up Friday from the paint shop and probably not going to do anything to the inside of it. I think the way Peterbilt did this, to be honest with you, they did an excellent job. I mean, you might put some chrome covers over your vent, but everything else is pretty nice. It's laid out. They did a, I mean Peterbilt knocked it out of the park on this one, I think.
This is a 389 glider kit. A guy put it on for sale last summer out of Kansas, out of Wichita, Kansas. I just love the color. It's an Evergreen Frost. I think it's just a pretty color. But the guy, he was a farmer and had a couple of bad years, his wife drove this truck and she did not want to get rid of it, but they needed to get rid of it. And so it was a low mileage. It only had like 340,000 miles on it. And so we flew out to Kansas, picked it up, brought it home. It had smaller wheels on it with bullet holes, so I had Peterbilt wheels. So we put the Peterbilt wheels on it. I had Lady Lines Pinstriping, she came and laid the gold leaf pinstriping on it and green underneath it. And the numbers and the name are stickers, but that's all gold leafing, pinstriping.
And that's really all we did to it. Put lights on it, put amber lights on it, half fenders, bigger pipes, just did a few things to it. Not a whole lot just to make it a cool truck, but it's just a work truck. This truck works every day, and I just love the color. I think it's cool to color. I have to put a swan and grab handles on everything. So we just did a few things. We put some amber lenses up underneath. It looks really, really nice at night. Looks cool in the daytime. It's just a work truck. This truck just works every day. But this is kind of the caliber trucks that we try to run every day. It's simple. And if you get back and look at this truck, it is just a pretty truck. It may not be no super rig or super cool show truck. I've got some of those trucks, this is not it, but it'll hold water with the rest of them. It is just a nice, good looking truck.
This here is a '94 Peterbilt. And so when I was 26 years old, we filed bankruptcy, we lost everything but our home, and the banker was fortunate enough to finance this truck for me. And I don't remember the interest rate. It was like 18 or 19%. It's not a crime to be broke, but it's just damn inconvenient. And so he loaned me the money on this truck and I went to hauling chips to the paper mill for just a little while. And then I bought a flatbed and I worked this truck six days a week. We worked Monday through Saturday and then in the wintertime when it slowed down, I'd have to go lease on. I leased onto Kaplan one year and leased onto Tennessee Steel Haulers, and we just didn't do very well at all. I'd always come back to my thing in January and run it until about September.
So this truck was just a great truck. It never tore up when I couldn't afford to fix it. It was always springtime when something happened to it. Rear end went out in it. But I've had this truck since probably '03, I guess, something like that. But this was just always a good truck. It just worked every day. It's got a four and a quarter Cat with a 15-speed in it, 3.90 rears. It's not a super fast truck, but this truck is just steady work every day. And then when my business started growing, I kind of came off the road into the office as we started adding trucks and stuff like that. And I put a driver in this truck and I bought the 359 next to it just so I could work a day or two when I wanted to. But so this was such a good truck, always a good truck.
It was American Class interior truck just didn't give us any trouble. There's trucks that you buy that are a pain in your ass and then there's just good trucks. This was just a good truck. And this truck really kind saved our livelihood and we built back from nothing with this truck here. I run this truck every Saturday morning when I get in, I'd back it in the driveway and by the time I'd get it backed in the driveway, my boys would get the wash stuff out, I'd slide underneath it, adjust the brakes. We would wash it. We could wash this truck. We had it down to a science. Me and my two boys, we could wash this truck in 20 minutes and put it in the yard and put it away. And we were done. I was done until Monday morning.
So this is a family history to me. My boys grew up in this truck. My youngest son who drives would go with me a lot of times on Saturday morning. Well, we'd have to leave at like two or three in the morning. He'd get in the truck, we'd make it about five miles. He'd get in the bunk, we'd go unload up in Nashville or something like that. And then on the way back we had to stop at the donut shop and I'd have to wake him up right before we get into the donut shop, get shoes on. So he'd get in, he'd get some donuts, come back, eat his donuts and he'd go back to bed until we went and loaded and by the time we were about to get home, I'd wake him up so we could go home. We'd drop my trailer and then take truck home. But anyway, so yeah, my kids grew up in this truck and I just love it.
And we built it back and it still needs a few things. It's a pretty truck now. It's always the same colors. It wasn't always this nice. It was a nice truck, but it wasn't this nice. But I love this truck and I don't know if it'll ever work again or not. It's paid its dues. I hate to see it just sit around and not do anything. But this truck, it fed my family and it built the farm. This truck probably means more to me than anything. I mean, I'd sell my wife and dog before I'd sell his truck. So that's just the way it is. After it got turned over, the body shop guy at Nashville, Jim is a super good guy and has been very good to me, but he talked me into putting a hot rod interior in it and I absolutely hate it.
But back in the day when this truck was in the mid-'90s before trucks went crazy, if you open the door of an American Class truck, had American Class interior, if somebody had taken care of it, most people did. You had a lot nicer truck than an accent interior truck. When you bought these trucks used, an accent interior truck would go for 15, 18,000. But that American Class truck would bring 25 or 30. So when you open the door of that, and seen an American class, you knew you had something. So out of all these trucks from a 359 up to a 589 as far as aesthetics, that American Class dash, that square dash American Class and all the leather interior. And I think that's just beautiful. I mean that's just the nicest Peterbilt ever did. And this truck came with that. And so this has got hot rod interior in it with a wood floor now, and I absolutely hate it. And so that's probably what's going to happen when we get back home this time is we're probably going to put the American Class back in it because that's what a truck to me is supposed to look like. That's what I like.
This '86 359 back when I, kind of back up a little bit. When my business started growing, I'd put a driver in this one and I bought this truck. The guy who owned it had died. And so it was brown, brown, there was kind of gold with brown fenders and a brown roof gap. Well, I bought it from his daughter. All his stuff was still in it. This was an old school truck. So I've just always been a sucker for a 359. My first truck I bought was a purple 359, but when I was trucking around, there was a guy out of Summertown, Tennessee, had one that was this color painted up just like this truck.
And I always thought it was just a cool truck, man. I see this truck rolling down the road the way the stripes are laid out. I mean it's kind of overdone with the fenders all striped and all that. And I thought it was just a Cadillac, man, that was cool. And so I bought this truck and we painted it charcoal gray and silver. I had a guy driving it hit a deer. And so we took it back to Peterbilt in Nashville and they've had it for, they had it for a few years, a couple of years. But we reskinned the sleeper and all that. And then I got it back, and I have a part-time guy that drives this truck and he wouldn't trade you this truck for the brand new one down there. Okay, he just loves this truck. So we got it back and he runs it two or three days a week on his off days from his full-time job.
So then we took it to Chris Gebhardt up in Effingham, Illinois, and he just redid the interior, put all new interior in it. We got it back a couple weeks ago. He had it about three weeks. He redid the interior. So this truck works three or four days a week and 2, 3, 4 days a week just depending on what his schedule is. But this is his truck so he doesn't have to jump around and drive somebody else's truck, we try to keep him a spare truck around. I didn't want to just beat it to death every day. So three or 4, 2, 3 days a week is great for me. It's got a four and a quarter Cat, it came with a 400 Cat. And so we put charge air cooler on and everything like that. So that bumped up four and a quarter, it's probably way more than that.
It's got a 15-speed, 3.55 rears. This whole truck pretty much get on down the road pretty good. It does a good job and it's fun to drive. We just put, I talked to a buddy of mine, Harlan Workman, out of a tilt column. And so we put a tilt column in it and we big holed it. So it makes it driver friendly. It is really not bad to drive. It don't have cruise control or nothing like that. But it's really fun to drive and we put the bus glass in it, put the bus glass in the back window. We've done everything to this truck. When we got it, I mean it's original headlights. We changed the paint scheme on it. Visor lights, breather lights, fenders, put new fuel tanks on it. Cody out at 4 States built me the factory looking boxes for it. So this truck, if you look at it inside and out, this is period correct. This is what it was like in '86 or '90. This is what you've seen back in the day. We didn't do anything crazy or, I mean, everything is what you would've seen back in the day.
