A great power shot of the near-new K108 doing what it does best, taming the Kaimais. Photo: Michael Beesley.

Our second inductee into the Bridgestone Million Mile Club this month was brand new to Tranzliquid Logistics of Mt Maunganui in 2008, and to this day still proudly carries the Tranzliquid livery. Originally No.9 in the fleet, now No.23, this flat-roof K108 Kenworth was a definite head-turner when it hit the road. Placed in the hands of Murray ‘JB’ Fowler, it was double-shifted from day one, with Ross Picknel sharing the driving duties. Murray says on the very first run he loaded it at the Mount and took it straight down to Hawke’s Bay to unload. From there, it was back to the Mount to reload and then over the hill to Morrinsville where he handed it over to Ross.

“He took it straight through to Whangārei, so there was no easing into the work. A regular day for Ross and I was three loads into Auckland from the Mount, so one and half loads each, swapping at Morrinsville. We certainly kept it busy,” he says.

“The auto shift really was shit at the start, it wasn’t calibrated for performance, so basically you had to drive it in manual all the time; it wouldn’t change where you needed it to change,” says Murray. “It was revving out too much, wouldn’t lug down, so we talked to Murray Kernohan at Cat and he told us to bring it in and that they would have a look at it.” They reprogrammed it with the heavy-haul programme, and that absolutely transformed the truck.

“It was completely different after that. From then on, the only time you pulled it out of auto was going down a good-sized hill, or if you knew it might jump a gear but you needed it to hold onto the one it was in; it was a real pleasure to drive from then on.”

Murray says reliability-wise, it really has been a great truck; it’s had some diff issues here and there, but the C15 ACERT Caterpillar has been near bullet-proof. “I had the truck up to 1,800,000km, and that is when it moved across into the bitumen tanker fleet, so they thought it was probably a good idea to give it a birthday. It was sent through to Cat in Rotorua where it was stripped down.

“Next thing, they are on the phone asking what it was we wanted them to do on it because they could not find anything wrong with it at all,” says Murray with a laugh.

The C15 has since had the ‘Bully Dog’ single turbocharger modification; this simplifies the engine, and also removes a lot of turbo lag.

Now with the best part of 2,500,000km on the clock, the big K108 finds itself on slightly lighter duties running containers, mostly local about the Bay of Plenty. A one-owner truck with some real history in the care of Tranzliquid, this iconic classic still has a lot to give.