Truck Models - How to Tell The Difference?

It's not that complicated. Like anything else research & study. If you want to know freightliners for instance you go to their site & study the models they have put out. You would do the same for other manufacturers. All the best in your research

 

There was a time when there really was a difference in trucks. Today, they are all cookie cutter types. Even I have to look for a name these days.

 

Here’s the easiest way to tell. Look at the driver when they get out of the truck.

- If they get out wearing a Nike track suit and the truck is white, it’s a Volvo.

- If some gym shorts, flip flop wearing, unkept homeless shelter yahoo comes crawling out, it’s a plastic bumper POS. It might say Peterbilt, Freightliner or whatever, but it’s just another OTR, disposable hunk of junk.

- Finally, if a manly man, dressed to the 9s, sporting a sweet young thing, or a Kentuckian, you can bet it’s a Pete 389, or other long nose truck.

 

It’s funny how even though 10 trucks identical come at you looking all the same. And yet there is a small enough difference that I can tell from a half mile away which one a friend is driving.
I remember in grade five I couldn’t tell the difference between cars, but a friend’s dad owned a garage, and the friend seemed to know every kind of car out there. It’s just a matter of being around it long enough.

 

Don’t feel bad, there’s some truckers out here that couldn’t tell you the difference between a red motor and a yellow one.
First being a being able to identify a Make from a distance is the first part. The Pete’s the kenworths. The freight shakers, the western stars, The internationals.
Then like you said associate it with a family. For instance the 359-379-389 all look very similar to the untrained eye. The freightliner Cascadia family looks pretty much the same with minor changes.

 

I'm guessing you are one of our friends to the north?