At 82, Jack Ferguson admits he’s not the best with a modern phone.
“I’m a good mechanic, but I can’t operate a phone or computer,” he laughs.
When it comes to trucks and what lies underneath the bonnet however, Jack’s an expert.
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His story starts on a getaway with his wife and a refusal to go window shopping. While his wife browsed a small country town, truck loving Jack went on the hunt through an industrial estate.
“I called up this tyre service asking for any old truck parked up in paddocks or any industrial areas they would know,” he says.
“They told me to go down this road; there I would find some trucks parked behind a cyclone fence. It took a bit of searching, but I found it.”
And there it was. A forgotten 1955 Federal Style-Liner sitting still, quiet.
“It looked pretty sad, but I went back and asked the tyre service workers who owned the yard, so I tracked them down and from them, I got through to the original owner, who had given the truck to his son. Unbeknownst to him however, he’d sold the semi off it,” Jack says.
One conversation led to another, and it was clear this Federal was a hard worker back in the day. It hauled loads out of Melbourne two to three times a week carting groceries, wheat and cotton, and would often push well beyond what it was built for.
“I was told that the truck would cart 30 tonne or more on the back,” Jack says. “That’s overloading it by at least 15 tonnes, but it stood up.”
So Jack called up the son, and even in its broken down state, he put in an offer.
“I offered $1,000, he virtually slammed the phone down,” Jack laughs. “I let it cool down for an hour or two before ringing back.”
So, he made his offer — $1,000. Rejected. $1,100? Still no. Eventually, at $1,200, the deal was done.
And just like that, an 11-year restoration began.
It’s a rare truck, so Jack had to start chasing for parts. He found a timber jinker, restored it and put it on the back of the truck, making it more comfortable to sit behind the wheel.
This wasn’t an easy project. The moment Jack lifted the cab; things quite literally fell apart. The grille dropped out, dents revealed themselves everywhere, and rust crept through in patches.
He cut out the rust and repaired it, but the real headache came when nothing lined up.
“I had the cab in undercoat, and when I was putting it back on and trying to line the panels up, nothing would fit,” Jack says.
“I had to take the cabin on and off three times. It was driving me nuts.”
to restore this rig
It took Jack calling in an old-school panel beater, a string line and a sharp eye to uncover the truth – the chassis had been bent, likely from a rollover or heavy hit decades earlier.
“I had noticed the outriggers – that support the cabin to the chassis – had been repaired, but it hadn’t been lined up properly,” Jack says.
“The panel beater explained the accident was the reason for this issue, everything else was lining up though, so we just altered the bracket to make the cabin sit properly on the truck.
“We could see evidence where it had either been hit across the left hand side – or it had been rolled – but there’s no one around to confirm.”
Then came the parts – or more accurately, the lack of them.
Finding components for a rare truck that disappeared decades ago isn’t easy.
Windscreens were impossible to source, forcing Jack to get creative. Using a handmade template, he made a two-piece solution that looks so right, you’d never know it wasn’t original.
“The windscreen wouldn’t go in from the outside, so we put a type of rubber in, and that way, we were able to fit the screen to the outside, which cut a bit of the radius off so the straight glass would go in and it’s not leaking,” he says.
Under the bonnet, the original 427 cubic inch red valve Continental petrol motor was also an issue.
“You couldn’t keep petrol with it, so I thought, I’ll have to find another diesel for it. So, I shopped around, and I found one in good nick, it’s a Hino EH 700 series,” he says.
“Now you can get her up to 114km/h, so it’s going alright which is quite surprising.”
He fitted in the motor, got it VicRoads approved, then had the carpet cut and fitted and improved the upholstery.
“There’s no door trims inside, it’s just straight steel with a panel that you can remove to get the glass out, which was damn awkward to do, but we did it,” he says.
And for Jack’s favourite part, open the butterfly bonnet, swing the guards up over the headlights, and you’re staring straight into the engine bay – a real unique feature of the old rig in Jack’s opinion.
He’s done the whole restoration himself – except for the wiring – and he feels damn proud of it too.
The truck was painted red, and then Federal green, so he took a sample of the paint and matched it. Now it rocks a deep burgundy colour – as close to Federal red as he could get it.
These days, the Federal lives a different life. One where it’s put on show rather than worked hard.
No more overloaded paddocks or punishing freight runs. It’s a show truck now, a head-turner, and it hasn’t lost what made it special.
And if this story proved anything, it’s that Jack is a great mechanic. Technology may not be his strong point, but, for the Federal, he didn’t need it to be.
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