Sitting beside the Tefol stand at the Casino Truck Show recently was a classy Kenworth with a cool story.
It’s the tale of a truck that started its life in 1981 as a day cab set up for Kwikasair, with a short wheel-base and an 892 detroit engine before Trent Lean grabbed it in 1994 to add to the Lean’s Transport fleet, along with a trailer and the work that came with the truck.
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“It just became a project, and 12 months later, I replaced both the rails and made it longer to suit a cab imported from America,” Trent says.
Back then, Lean’s Transport, based out of Dungog, spent most of its time servicing the Hunter Valley. The truck hauled aluminium, then bricks to Newcastle and at one stage had a trailer with a moffat on the back to do site deliveries.
“We did timber out of Dungog to Sydney as well. General freight – bit of general – a little bit of interstate, maybe about once a month.”
In 2007, the W Model Kenworth left the Lean family when Trent decided it was time for a change.
“We had a few trucks, and I sold them all,” he says. “I’d had enough of trucking, funnily enough. I went from running trucks to converting Peterbilts from left- to right-hand drive. Then I ended up going to the mines for many years before coming back to work with Nick and Sharece at Tefol.”
Returning to work with Nick, his son, played an important part in the reunion of Trent with his old faithful Kenworth.
“At the start of 2023, Nick put an ad on Facebook looking for the truck. There was nothing from that, and three months later he put it up again.
“Then a guy got in touch and said he thought he knew where the truck was – they exchanged details and Nick spoke to the guy, who said he was happy to sell the truck if it was going back to the original owner.
“So, we went up and had a look at it. It was running and he wanted a fair bit of money for it. I thought that was that.
“Lo and behold, the kids bought it for me and brought it home and surprised me with it.”
Trent can’t help but smile as he recalls the family gathering around to watch his face as the truck rolled into the street on the tray of another truck – “They all knew!”.
The truck is a work in progress, and a project for a whole team to get involved with.
“It’s the whole family, it’s Nick, Sharece’s family’s involved as well and the Tefol group – it’s not just me by any stretch – it’s all about the family.
“We’re going to restore it and make it more modern. It’s gone past being original when it was at Kwikasair.
Nick and Brendan made the six-hour journey up to Casino from Maitland, the truck’s first run for six years, and Trent says: “touch wood, it’s been fine”.
For Trent and the team, the vision for the truck now is to bring it back to life, repairing and replacing anything damaged, and using the solid base to create a show truck to showcase the work of the Tefol team, which ranges from mechanical expertise to chrome work, electrical harnesses, lighting and more.
“We’re just going to make it look beautiful. It’ll be our test vehicle, we’ll put all our products in.”
“It’s a great project. We got a lot done in the last fortnight just to bring it up here.
“The firewalls need replacing, there’s some rust, it’s not holed out, but it needs replacing.
“It needs a new floor in it as the rat’s nest was in both back corners behind the seats.”
Trent, who’s also working for Tefol, says he hopes to be back at Casino with the updated truck next year to share the progress and be part of the event again.
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