Since the COVID pandemic forced Overdrive’s Pride & Polish truck show to a virtual, online format in 2020, ending the long-running in-person event, Overdrive editors haven’t had the same opportunities to meet owners face-to-face or get an up-close look at many of the competing trucks.
As evidenced today in the video up top, there have been plenty exceptions over the course of the six years we've hosted the virtual event. Run through my talk with Michael Castaldi about his 2025 Pride & Polish Working Combo champ '03 Pete and 2010 Utility reefer there.
The time of canceled truck shows and shutdowns is long behind us now, and the virtual truck show era has run its course. While Overdrive's Pride & Polish ends in that form this year, the history wrapped up in 35 years of the name will live on through a merge of Overdrive’s extensive Custom Rigs coverage of shows and readers' rigs all around the country.
The competitive spirit of Pride & Polish will live on, too.
Over the next several weeks, OverdriveOnline.com’s Custom Rigs section will merge with Pride & Polish on this page. Subscribers to the weekly Overdrive’s Custom Rigs newsletter can also expect to see a similar change in name. Stay tuned for more on all of that in the coming weeks.
[Related: After 30 years of show truck evolution, Pride & Polish still boasts ‘best of our industry’]
This week, all hail 2024 Pride & Polish champ Michael Castaldi, owner of M.D.C. Transport out of Deltona, Florida. The 2025 Peterbilt Pride & Class parade and accompanying truck show in Denton, Texas, brought about that rare opportunities to catch up with the latest from a virtual Pride & Polish winner.
Owner-operator Castaldi and his big-bunk 2003 Peterbilt 379 and 2010 Utility reefer combo, “Paradise Express,” were on hand for the invitation-only event last fall.
Running team today with his son, Michael Jr., Castaldie's rig at the time of the Peterbilt event had racked up nearly 3.5 million miles -- all of which were driven by one of the Castaldis. The father-son duo haul produce out of Florida to Arizona, typically.
The elder Castaldi bought the truck new in 2002 with a factory 260-inch wheelbase and 63-inch sleeper.
Nine years in, he was ready for a change. He “sent it up to Indiana” to ARI Legacy Sleepers and had the frame stretched to 320 inches for a 132-inch big bunk. The truck was repainted to match the 2010 Utility 3000R reefer he ordered with the paint scheme, knowing the truck was soon to follow.
“I knew exactly how I was going to tie them together,” he said of the stripes on truck and trailer.
Castaldi chose white as the primary color of his paint scheme almost out of necessity to keep temperatures down inside the truck, running between Florida and the Southwest. Plus, "I like the way ... the magenta and the black kind of go together," he said.
[Related: 'Paradise Express' at 3 million miles and counting: Stunning big-bunk '03 Pete 379]
The exterior lines and overall appearance haven't changed much since he added the big bunk in 2011, yet Castaldi made mechanical changes in 2017 that have made a big difference in the operation.
“In 2017, we took the rear-end housings out, turned it into a 6x2,” he said. The truck now boasts a 23,000-pound forward rear axle with a tag axle behind it. “We lost almost 450 pounds” in weight, he said.
Coupled with running a lighter-weight trailer tire on the tag axle, the move saved more than 500 pounds on the configuration. In the video up top, he details other weight-saving mods -- drums, rims, filters, items that alone don’t make much difference but add up when combined.
Michael Castaldi
The Pete's powered by a Series 60 Detroit -- Paradise Express’s fourth in its 23 years on the road. The engines weren’t replaced because of problems, however. Castaldi will tell you off the top of his head the exact mileage each was pulled. At the time of the Peterbilt show last fall, he noted, “the first one was pulled at a million-ten; second one, a million-25; the last one, a million-35,000. This one’s got 375 [thousand] on it.”
A friend of Castaldi’s runs a 30-truck fleet, all with Detroit engines, “and he’s looking for good blocks to build good engines to keep for spares. He knows mine’s still running,” so Castaldi gets a new engine around every million miles and helps a fellow truck owner in the process.
[Related: Young owner-operator's 1987 Peterbilt 359 with Cat C16 power]
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Michael Castaldi: This is a 2003 379, and it currently has closing in on 3.5 million miles. And it's got a little bit of history.
I'm Michael Castaldi, the business is M.D.C. Transport, and I'm out of Deltona, Florida.
Overdrive: All right. What kind of work do you do?
Michael Castaldi: Mainly produce, direct customer in West Palm Beach and we run east-west.
Overdrive: How long have you been in business for yourself?
Michael Castaldi: Since 1986. I just always from a kid, you know, small child, always loved trucks. So I just took off from there and never turned back. And now 40 years later, we're still at it.
This is a 2003 379, so I had it for 23 years. It came in as a 260 inch wheelbase with a 63 in sleeper. And in 2011, I had it, sent it up to Indiana, had it stretched out to 320 and put that 132 inch sleeper on it, and then had it repainted to match the trailer that I already had the stripes on before I even redid the truck, because I knew exactly how I was going to tie them together.
That was done in 2011. So, I probably have like well over 2 million miles on the current configuration with the same paint. And that bumper is 14 years old. When that was done, that bumper went on. It's got 3.5 million miles on it. People like no way, so yeah, that's the same bumper. Same paint, same bumper.
So that basically ran it the way it is for from 2011 to current. But in between that in 2017, we took the rear end housings out, turned it into a 6x2. So I got a 23,000 pound front and there's nothing in the back, block off plate, plugs, and the oil stays to the outside. It's a tag axle.
When we did that we lost almost 450 pounds of weight. If you include the tires, you know, being able to run a trailer tire, which is like 25 pounds lighter, times four, we were over 500 pounds reduction in weight. So this thing between that and a few other things that we've done to lighten it up, we're a lot lighter than people think. I can still put 43,400, 43,300 if I run everything down on the fuel levels, which for something that big is pretty good.
Overdrive: Was that more of a necessity when you added the bigger sleeper to pull the weight off?
Michael Castaldi: Well, when we built the sleeper, we did so many things to, you know, lightweight drums, the lightest rims you could possibly put on their foam air filters. I mean, you don't think the stuff adds up, but, you know, 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 15 pounds, it adds up. The battery capacity from four. We went to 2100 cranking amp batteries. We lost probably 100 and something pounds just on the batteries. So, you know, built the sleeper as low as possible and it's 96 inch wide rather than 102 inch wide, which in my opinion it looks better, stays even with the stacks rather than the sleeper sticking out and the stacks sitting in, so it looks better, but it also reduces weight.
Didn't put it back door on it, that adds 300 pounds because they have to brace the back, you know, to support where the door's cut out, and just stuff like that to keep it light. And it made a difference in the end. They were blown away. When we went and weighed it at ARI. They said, "man, this is it's pretty light. You know, we got records of all these sleepers and this one's pretty light." It's light, and we continued on from then.
Overdrive: What was the inspiration behind the color scheme on the stripes?
Michael Castaldi: The color scheme, you know, black goes with purple. And I just like white because it's a cooler. When I say cooler temperature wise color. Being in Florida and running out to Arizona and California, you're in that heat all the time. Kind of reflect that all the way. I like the way the the purple, you know, the magenta and the black kind of go together, so that's kind of that's kind of where the color came in.
The trailer is a 2010 Utility, and that's that trailer is 16 years old. It's got probably 2.2 million miles on it. You know, and that paint's all original. You know, those stripes were put on when I bought the trailer and not, you know, five years later. Right before I went to work with it, and the truck wasn't even done like this. I ran it a year. And even the sides, that's just the original factory. I didn't even know what you call it powder coat. You know, cheap factory paint. Just try to be careful with, you know, washing it. Don't use anything strong. And when you rinse, you see white coming off, you're in trouble.
So the miles on the truck, it still doesn't rattle. There's still no draft, and there's still no leaks. And that's 23 years with that amount miles out here.
Overdrive:
That's all you can ask for.
Michael Castaldi: That's Denton, Texas, for you. They build a good truck.
