Make and year of this truck

Old Oshkoshs for reference.

 

I can't remember what else I said when I published the original photo, but at the risk of repeating myself, I will recount the time when I was looking for work in Sydney and, spotting a driver taking a break in an Oskosh and semi I got into conversation with him.

He was an owner driver about to start his regular run to Melbourne, almost 900 km (550 miles) to the south. He offered me a job on the spot but I declined. A cramped, cold, uncomfortable cab was not exactly on my wish list and I had previously been driving roadtrains with a B61 Mack, so you can see how bad this truck appeared to me.

 

I believe the B61 was nicknamed “King of the Road”.

 

Yes, and I really loved my time in mine, but would I swap one today as a regular long distance ride rather than an airsprung seat, warm or cold air conditioning, radio? I think probably yes, though that was then when I was an eager young 25 year old whose world was his oyster, after a lifetime almost of gradual improvement in the comfort stakes 58 years later, I might think differently.

But you can see that if that is the way I thought about 900kms in the dark in a space no bigger than my car, rearward sloping screen at the bottom and little space left between it and my nose, how bad it must have been. I gave up searching in Sydney and rode the rails north to the tropics of N. Queensland where I had a variety of jobs and when I returned to Sydney, became a taxi driver.

BTW, some of those Australian RHD Macks found their way to England where we were mightily impressed, to join some LHD direct imports and those definitely had 'King of the Road' emblazoned across the front bumper.

 

Were these like some of the newer Macks, catch an ##* whippin before you catch 10th gear?

 

My Mack, Columbus, MS to LA/Frisco weekly, 1/57 to 5/58. Steady dependable little hoss....

 

No idea, I never drove a later model, there was one R model before I left, but that was the Boss's motor and no-one got to drive that.

That's even older than mine and before I even had a licence, not often I meet someone older than me. The design of that reminds me of the Jimmy that Cannonball drove. Remember him?