? MODERN cabover fleet

Thanks for the tease

 

Man is that Schneider truck ugly, you couldn't give me all the tea in china to drive that thing!

 

I was hitchin back to Ill in the early 70's got picked up by a "six pack " driver outside of Pendleton. Rode with him clear to Omaha. I think that guy knew every bar along the way. 1 six pack at a time.. Any way long about midnight or so somewhere in NB I convinced him to let me drive the truck. It was an old (then) Freight shaker COE running 80,000 lbs of turnips or somethin. YA I know 80 gross. I drove for about 1/2 hr --45 min in one of those lovely midsummer thunderstorms only the midwest has. Only got up to about 50, had to stop and restart only twice or 3 times cause something was funny with 5th I think and I didn't have the finess. That thing beat the crap out of ya! I had this romantic notion that I wanted to be a truck driver --- at least until I drove that rig. (my old man was a trucker) Took all the romance out of it! So I built boats and sucked up welding fumes instead. Now ,almost 40 years later, Im lookin to plant my ### in one of those "wonderful" Swift Volvos for awhile. What am I thinkin??

 

I'll call ahead and make sure you get an Argosy.

 

One company that I know around here that still uses CO tractors.. Dolly Madison, aka Interstate Brands, now Hostess. My ex-brother-in-law drove for them for years, and retired from them. IIRC, they are Team only, Union-Teamsters, and have been having a lot of financial difficulties, like near bankruptcy. My dad was a production worker at their plant in Emporia, KS.

 

Funny girl ! I had to google Argosy. Not a bad lookin truck. I'm not sure the electronic nannys and I would get along well though. I hope it rides better than that old thing I drove. Comin from the NW , I'm kinda partial to KW's. See alot of KW loggin trucks.

 

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/steps-to-the-future-20110707-1h32c.html

Here is a great article and photo about the Argosy. I grew up watching COE White Freightliners, K100s and 352s,GMCs, Macks,Fords,IH and the rest back in the 70s/80s and always thought they were cooler than the "hognose rigs". If I have my choice one day as an O/O, I'm going for fuel mileage, turning radius, power to weight ratio(less tractor weight=more available load weight right?) and fuel mileage. COEs are cool, functional and I guess since I've driven custom cab firetrucks for 10 years, more to my liking than conventionals.

 

Yeah I was about to say Dolly Madison Bakery still uses them. Somebody mentioned them earlier.. I've seen some new looking Argosy's they got and some older freightliner coe's too.