If you think having a personalised plate gifted to you for your birthday is great, how about receiving the truck to go with it?

Scott Sherson of RMD Transport at Mt Maunganui had been considering adding a new truck to the company fleet to coincide with his dad Mark’s 70th birthday.

“I just had a hair-brain idea one day and mentioned it to Mum. She said, ‘Go for it,’” recalls Scott. “I considered a few options, but Dad has always wanted a Kenworth T909, so the decision was made.”

Scott faced the dilemma of getting a new truck right through the production line, signwritten and delivered, without his dad knowing. The result had to be a surprise. The order was placed, and production got underway. Word often spreads fast in the industry when the company is putting a new truck on the road, so keeping every stage of the build a secret was not going to be easy.

“The truck was sent to Kentweld, in Melbourne, to have the bumper fitted. We had to ask for covers to be put over the exhaust shrouds to hide the RMD lettering that had been laser cut into them,” says Scott. “This truck had to come into New Zealand with no indication of who it was for.”

A little bit of history

RMD (Rorison Mineral Developments) has always favoured Kenworths, even back in the pre-Sherson days. In 2002, Sherson Contractors, based in Hamilton (owned by Mark Sherson), bought the transport side of RMD from the late Gary Rorison. Mark, along with the late Neil Davison (‘Charlie’, Mark’s right-hand man) lived in Hamilton and commuted over to the Mount every day to work. After 21 years, Mark is still making the trip over the Kaimais most days. “I should have moved to the Mount long ago,” he jokes.

Since 2004, Mark has purchased a variety of trucks, replacing the older ones in the fleet. “I didn’t want the company to grow too much,” Mark says. “My goal was to have late-model gear and a team of good drivers. Often, drivers would leave … maybe head to Aussie for a bit … but many of them returned. The company currently runs more than 30 trucks in the North Island.

When the company pay clerk was away on leave, Mark asked Scott (a builder at the time) to come in and help with the wages. “I knew Scott could do the job; he was always good at maths. Back then, everything in the office was hand-written … invoices, payslips, everything. It was definitely old-school. Scott was great with computers, and he brought us into the 21st century,” Mark recalls.

Scott continues: “Once I did that, I pretty much never left.” Mark tells us Scott is now stepping up, and “I’m slowly stepping out”.

In about 2008, Mark moved the company from Rorison’s old yard on Aerodrome Road further down the same road to its current location. “The set-up here was purpose-built for us,” says Mark. “It gave us our own workshop and bulk stores, all on one site in Mt Maunganui. We transport the clients’ product to and from the bulk stores countrywide. With such a large storage capacity, we can help our clients grow their own businesses.”

Back to the surprise

“We ordered the truck in October 2021, with the intention of it being presented to Dad for his 70th birthday in March 2023,” explains Scott. “However, Covid kicked in and disrupted the Kenworth production line. First, we thought the only option would be to present him with a bare cab and chassis on his birthday, but that didn’t happen. We then decided to have the bin on and present it to him at our mid-year company get-together, usually held in August … but we then had to push that out to October.”

The big question is, how do you hide a truck painted in distinctive colours from an always curious bunch of trucking enthusiasts? Scott explains how: “Once the truck arrived in New Zealand to Southpac Trucks, we asked a signwriter to throw a different logo on the doors and bonnet. The colour of the truck was a bit of a giveaway that it was for RMD, so we were hoping the fake signage would distract from who it was really for. One or two people did suspect, but we put them off the scent in the hope Dad wouldn’t find out.”

Next, the truck headed to Transport and General Engineering (T&G) in Hamilton to have bins fitted.

“Greg Cornes from T&G found a mate with a shed who could hide it for us. We had to pull the stacks and aerials off to fit it in the shed. The day before the work party, Cliff from Truck Signs Mt Maunganui sent two guys over to signwrite it with the correct name. I had to tell Dad some little white lies to enable me to head to Hamilton and strip all the tape off the stainless, air cleaners and stacks for the signwriters to do their job. Paul, my brother, came with me to help polish and get the marathon effort completed. The signwriters finished at 6pm on Friday, and after about 15 hours of polishing and putting everything back together, we finished at about 1:45pm on Saturday. I admit there were a few beers on Friday night to help the process. Our work do was starting at 5pm, so I had to go home and get all the polish off my hands. I had to tell Dad I had been helping a mate work on his car.”

With the RMD work function about to take place at the C&R Developments Museum in Hautapu, Cambridge, and busloads of family, employees and their partners travelling from their Hamilton hotel, a covert operation had to take place to ensure the finished, polished T909 was not spotted making its way to the event.

Southpac truck salesman Tim Finlay was behind the wheel of the 909 that day.

“Tim had to take back roads from the storage shed at Ngahinapouri to Hautapu. He stopped on the way, waiting for the all-clear. Once I knew the buses were past his point, I phoned him, and he brought it round and hid it behind a roller door. Everyone was inside when the truck arrived, and only one person heard it pull up, but I managed to put him off,” Scott explains.

“I told everyone I had to do a spiel about the housekeeping of the venue. I managed to get Mum and Dad up the front on the pretext of congratulating them on 50 years of marriage that year. That kept Dad off the track of suspecting anything else.

Scott’s brother Ryan was then asked to come forward to present Dad with a wrapped gift for his 70th birthday. He opened it to find a personalised plate with the registration RMD909. He was rapt with it, because he thought it was for his Ranger ute. The rego on his ute was NTZ909, so he just assumed it was a replacement.

“I realised at that point, Dad was so rapt with the number plate, we could have saved a lot of money!” laughs Scott.

“Dad was showing it to everyone and was so chuffed with it. Then the roller door went up, and the Kenworth grill got bigger … and bigger.”

It was common knowledge among the RMD staff that management had a few Kenworth T610 SAR trucks on order, so the opening door was expected to reveal one of them. Scott’s face gets a cheeky grin when he says, “I just threw Dad the keys and said, ‘It’s all yours.’ He was gobsmacked and had no words at all. He drove it into the shed, and the celebrations began!”

Mark says, “As the roller door went up, my first thought was, ‘Why would you have a 909 rego plate on a 610?’ I was blown away, totally surprised. I had no inkling at all. I genuinely thought when I received the plate, it was for my Raptor. I was happy with that!”

Keeping the secret

It was exactly two years from when Scott ordered the T909 to the day of the presentation. “You have no idea how hard it was to keep it quiet for two years,” says Scott. “The only people who knew were Mum, my two brothers Ryan and Paul, Dave Jackson, our general manager, Tim Finlay, Mike, Greg and Craig at T&G, and of course, Cliff.”

RMD is a family business, with Mark, Scott and Dave at the helm. Ryan runs the bulk store and Paul has an integral role in the workshop. When asked if Scott has a comment about his Mum’s role, he laughs and says: “Just that she has had to put up with Dad for so long!”

Mark clarifies and says, “She’s the boss. Jo rules the roost; she keeps everyone on the straight and narrow.”

Behind the wheel

At the end of it all, the great surprise had to be put out to work to earn its keep. Frank Huia is the lucky guy behind the wheel. With the unit based in Te Awamutu, he is currently carting around the Waikato, while waiting for the HPMV permits to come through. He will eventually venture throughout the North Island.

When comparing this new unit to his previous wheels, Frank says, “I like the look of the chrome and bling. I definitely have more leg room, and it’s a lot quicker on the hills.”

Mark concludes: “We wouldn’t be where we are today without the support of our great team of employees and the loyal clients and suppliers who all play a major role within our company.”