In the Top Truck pozzie this issue, we relive a great moment in the magazine’s early history with today’s incarnation of a Uhlenberg Haulage Mack Super-Liner hauling gas north from Taranaki.

Cast your mind back 38 years to the June 1987 main test in New Zealand Trucking, featuring Mike Uhlenberg’s new 500hp V8 Mack Super-Liner Highway Flyer. If someone had posed the question to us all then, ‘What will be carting the gas north in 38 years – a quarter-century beyond the millennial tick over?’ I wonder what we would have said? Something out of The Jetsons, maybe?

Better still, imagine if you could go back, and be there on that morning when all were gathered.

‘Okay, guys, February 2024, the latest edition will be a Mack Super-Liner, it’ll still look big and tough, and it’ll have engine, transmission, diffs, suspension, chassis rails and tyres, but two steering axles … that’s right, two!

‘It will be more refined, largely on account of Mack being owned by Volvo Group. It’ll have another 100hp and 462lb/ft more torque – however, the top of the tree for the Super Dog then will be an eye-watering 780hp and 2800lb/ft. Oh, they’ll also change gear all by themselves.’

Of course, we’d have to follow on and tell them about the dire state of the roads, the density of traffic in the Golden Triangle, then, maybe, even attempt the Internet of Things, cell phones, multi-gender toilets, what pilsner was, and that Elvis was likely dead because he never resurfaced.

Then and now in pictures

With Clayton’s help, we’ve taken a drive down memory lane with our photo set, replicating the imagery from the 1987 road test. Hope you all enjoy it.

The ultimate replication!

Here we are in 2024

The latest big dog to roll in the famous Uhlenberg Haulage gates on Bridge Street in Eltham is this month’s Top Truck, and it arrived 38 years after the V8 celebrated on the cover all those years ago.

“Uhlenberg Haulage Ltd have continually run a Mack or three in the fleet since the first Super-Liner in 85,” said Daryl Uhlenberg. “We have added a larger than normal amount of equipment to the fleet over the past three to four years, so it was time to keep the tradition alive. Brother Chris was instrumental in getting the ball rolling with the most recent Super-Liner purchase, and there’s probably no right and wrong when it comes to keeping tradition alive.”

Driver on No.39 Optical Illusion is Clayton Haakma, who is about to celebrate three years with Taranaki’s best-known trucking brand. A spray painter by trade, 51-year-old Clayton comes from fine trucking pedigree, and there was only ever going to be one life for him once he secured a trade. Now a 26-year veteran of the road, Clayton’s worked in logs, fuel (crude oil) and gas cartage for the bulk of his driving life, all with local Taranaki outfits. When quizzed about life at the green and orange icon, he says, “Oh yeah, hell yeah. Good eh? They’re bloody good people, a real trucker’s company.”

The big Super-Liner packs the 16.1L MP10 which yields 448kW (600hp) and 2800Nm (2065lb/ ft) of torque. Behind that is an mDRIVE 12-speed overdrive AMT transmission and Meritor RT46- 160GP diffs on Mack AP460 air suspension.

In a move away from the Uhlenberg linehaul norm through modern times, the Mack doesn’t have a sleeper cab due to the kingpin setting on the Genesis Energy-owned Lowes Industries quad gas tanker it tows. If it had come with a sleeper, it wouldn’t have had it for long.

The Super-Liner is Clayton’s third gig since starting. He kicked off on a Western Star 4884, moved on to one of the famous green Peterbilts, and then on to the Mack.

“It’s a nice truck, easy to drive, but they’ve lost something with the Elite interior going. That’s sad.” His normal work profile consists of day and night shifts in a week-about roster carting gas from the Kupe and McKee fields north to Auckland, with Ryan Orchard reloading the unit for Clayton, as he does for the other linehaul drivers, based in Uhlenberg’s New Plymouth depot.

It may approach things without the razzmatazz of a bellowing V8, but there’s no question Uhlenberg’s latest big Bulldog will have little trouble holding up its end of the marque’s tradition in the company.

Then & Now