Trucking History

Leave trucking better than you found it

It was a central message of a veritable sermon small fleet owner Jason Cowan delivered to MATS attendees. In this Overdrive Radio podcast, the thought-provoking talk tracks from the owner's history and early mentors to long-term relationship value.

April 8, 2024

1975 Brockway U360 returned to glory as a piece of trucking history

The truck was originally owned by Buck Hylton and participated in protests by coal miners in Washington, D.C., in 1975. Years later, after Hylton had long since sold the rig, his son found it, bought it, and restored the truck to its original glory.

January 25, 2024

Kevin Hylton's 1975 Brockway U360

Sponsor Content

Compute the potential profit in any truckload, access per-day and per-mile breakouts with Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer

Fusable

Know your costs, owner-operators? Compute the potential profit in any truckload, access per-day and per-mile breakouts, and compare brokers' offers on multiple loads. Enter your trucking business's fixed and variable costs, and load information, to get started.

March 24, 2025

Compute the potential profit in any truckload, access per-day and per-mile breakouts with Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer

A tribute to Glenn 'Pillsbury' Hensley -- his well-preserved personal 1984 Pete 359

A. Hensley Livestock Dispatch and Consulting owner Andrea Hensley pays tribute to her legendary small fleet owner father in conversation with Long Haul Paul -- and gets a look with all of us at the spectacular restoration of the 359.

January 5, 2024

Darrell Estes' restoration of Glenn 'Pillsbury' Hensley's 1984 359

Guitarist, founding member of iconic rock band with Overdrive ties dies

Tim Bachman, one of the founding members of the iconic Canadian rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, passed away April 28. The last part of the band's name came from an encounter with this publication at a Windsor stop, detailed in August 1975.

January 23, 2023

Bachman-Turner Overdrive August 1975 feature in Overdrive

How trucking built America: The view from Scott Spear's 1969 Kenworth W900A

Scott Spear, who went out trucking first in 1969, helped literally haul the country into the 21st century. Now, his restored '69 Kenworth tells a story that reverberates through the very iron and steel undergirding American life.

February 6, 2023

1969 kenworth w900a

Trucking History

Veterans Day rewind: Mail-call memories from Vietnam

Retired owner-operator Doug Fetterly’s first job out of high school, in 1966, was with the Fourth Infantry Division of the U.S. Army in Vietnam.

November 8, 2010

Doug Fetterly, pictured in 1967 stationed near Cambodia and reading one of among many copies of Overdrive his owner-operator father sent him from back home.

Overdrive Extra

Roadmansion photo gallery, background from founder Mike Parkhurst

Some of Overdrive’s oldest readers might recall the Roadmansion hotel in Los Angeles. Retired driver Bill Nickel, 74, was one of them when this story originally aired in 2014. Founder Mike Parkhurst also recalled two years of operation in the late 60s.

July 16, 2014

Overdrive Roadmansion ...a new dimension in dignity spread from Overdrive magazine

Breaking Free: The history of the owner-operator in trucking

From fighting for freedom to haul in its early days to stressing smart business practices later, Overdrive has championed the owner-operator’s concerns. Here, a history of owner-op business, from 1960-2011, with a special request for you.

September 1, 2011

Trucking History

60 years ago this month, Overdrive's first issue

It was 1961, truckers' numbers on the nation's roads were growing, and Overdrive founder and editor Mike Parkhurst was busy establishing an irreverent sense of humor with a serious tone as the Voice of the American Trucker ... download issue 1 here.

September 21, 2021

overdrive september 1961 issue cover

Looking back on 9/11's lasting trucking legacy

This retrospective on trucking history post-9/11 comes on the occasion of the 20th anniversary. While impacts of that event are impossible to exhaustively chronicle, Overdrive found shifts in security protocols, driver camaraderie, freight, and more.

September 13, 2021

Dick McCorkle and Tim Philmon

Docmenting the 'Faces of the Road' with Long Haul Paul

Any retrospective on Overdrive's recent history would be incomplete without Paul Marhoefer's contributions to the magazine's multi-author "Overdrive Extra" blog with his "Faces of the Road" series of dynamic close-ups, delivering living history.

September 6, 2021

Paul Marhoefer (bottom right) channeled the story of Kay and Ken Wagner (bottom left) in late 2019 as part of the 'Faces' series. The Wagners didn't exactly divulge the secrets underlying their 45 years of team OTR work, yet their history spoke for itself. Read more in Overdrive's weekly 60th-annversary series of lookbacks on trucking history, and that of the magazine itself, via this link.

Overdrive Radio

‘Eastbound and Down’ celebrates Bandit's ‘naughty’ antics in classic movie

For this final "Songs of the Highway" podcast installment, arguably the best-known and most-loved trucking movie, “Smokey and the Bandit,” takes center stage with its signature song by Jerry Reed, “Eastbound and Down.”

August 30, 2021

jackie and burt

Eye candy, business advice: Overdrive's top 25 custom-rigs vids

Marking Overdrive's sixth decade in existence, here's a compilation in one handy spot of the most-watched equipment-forward videos we've done since our Pride & Polish vid collection in 2015.

August 23, 2021

custom rig compilation

A year after his passing, ‘Midnight Cowboy’ Bill Mack lives on in readers’ memories

Though he never met Mack, reader Ralph Hudson surmised the radio legend might have been "my best friend." Other memories of the 'Midnight Cowboy' here, including former Overdrive editor Max Heine's remembrance at the time of his passing one year ago.

August 11, 2020

Overdrive Radio

Songs of the Highway: Kay Adams' 'Little Pink Mack'

One of the first – if not 'the' very first – entertainers to use music to highlight the influx of female drivers into trucking was Kay Adams, with “Little Pink Mack.” Released in 1966, the song celebrated a can-do toughness and spirit.

August 9, 2021

Pink Mack truck

1982 Peterbilt 359, W. Tim Miller's grain-to-market hauler, an emblem of owner-op history

Tim Miller's previous 1969 359 was featured in a 1990s edition of Overdrive prompted by the appreciation of his then-teenage daughter for her father's dedication to the family business. Miller's an emblem of owner-operator history from the farms.

August 3, 2021

1982 peterbilt 359

Did Joe Biden drive a truck or didn't he?

Whatever the case, he did take a ride with an independent trucker in 1973, evidenced in this lookback. Trucking could use a little more of what Biden seems to have had back at that time, an empathy for the realities of the independent trucking business.

September 10, 2012

Overdrive Radio

What came before the CDL? 18 years old and hauling in 1917

This special edition of Overdrive Radio re-airs a talk with Jay Thompson, looking back on his family's history in trucking, all the way back to his grandfather Walter, 18 years old and trucking with a chauffeur's license in 1917.

July 27, 2021

walter thompson

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Getty Images 178088241 Training Course

CDL schools call out 'threat' of 'unscrupulous training entities'

CDL training groups say FMCSA hasn't kept up with removing bad actors from the Training Provider Registry, and that it's a threat to safety on the roads.

Warner 362

Bill Warner & Son's 'Hillbilly Hampton' 1988 Peterbilt 362

Fmcsa Id Verfication System

FMCSA's new ID verificaton test-drive, live from the Mid-America Trucking Show

Niche Hauls Collection

Niche hauls: How to find yours, and tradeoffs and triumphs of specialization

S650-XT 2-in-1 Convertible Wireless Headset for Clear Calls with Active Noise Cancellation.

S650-XT 2-in-1 Convertible Wireless Headset for Clear Calls with Active Noise Cancellation.

'Keep digging' with Dice Mayhem's Trucking, growing dump roots to long-term small fleet success

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Pride & Polish

Overdrive’s annual Pride & Polish virtual truck show attracts entries from across the nation showcasing show-quality design, mechanical ingenuity and plenty of trucking-business pride. Find recent-history awards shows, in-depth features about the winners, and more.

Pride & Polish Promo Image