When the Mack Super-Liner LT was released in the mid-2000s by Mack Trucks Australia, the promotional brochure graphically announced, ‘We’ve unleashed a monster’. Thirty years on, Andrew ‘Sooty’ Breach has realised a dream, and tamed one of these impressive beasts.

The LT Super-Liner is one of those trucks that makes you stop and stare no matter your stable preference. It exudes a presence that lives up to the media hype generated when the model was released. Phrases like ‘it’s big, it’s impressive, it’s a tower of linehaul muscle and chrome’ were used to promote the new model. Fair to say, when it hit the road, we were not disappointed.

One of the most striking LTs to go on the road in New Zealand was the 2007 6×4 tractor unit of Menefy Trucking in Palmerston North. “Yeah, that was a cool truck. When I used to see it on the road, I remember thinking to myself, one day I will get hold of one,” says Sooty.

“When the time came, I tried to purchase one here in New Zealand, but, unfortunately, had no luck. So with the help of our good mate Murray Sowerby, we tracked this one down in Australia. It was a one- owner truck, working in an earthmoving and logging fleet, mostly pulling a transporter, shifting machinery. Murray was awesome, arranging the legals and getting it shipped over for us, as well as assisting with compliance.”

The LT Super-Liner was offered new with either the Cummins Signature or Caterpillar C15 under the hood, both respectively pushing 550hp and 1850lb/ft. “We were after a Cat-powered one, with Roadranger gearbox, Hendrickson suspension and Meritor rear end, and that’s exactly what we have found. From what we know, it was a one-owner truck that was built in 2005, and has just over 980,000km on the clock now. It spent some time in Tasmania on projects there, then moved to mainland Victoria later in its life with that company.

“According to the original owner, the head has never been off the C15, and it was a good reliable unit in their fleet. It was plain Jane when we got it, but you could tell it had been looked after, so that helped with achieving the end result that you see now,” Sooty explains.

Like the Super-Liner, the trailers also have a connection to Sooty. “The B-train tippers were new in 1998 to PGF in Benneydale. I was living in New Plymouth at the time, driving through to Auckland pretty much daily. This took me right through the King Country, PGF’s backyard, so I would see them most days in my travels. I remember thinking at the time that they looked quite cool. It was a bit over a year ago that I spotted them on Trade Me. They had ended up with a wheat grower on the Takapau Plains. I had a look over them, and I could see that they would fit in amongst what we do as an extra, so the deal was done and we pulled them home.”

Sooty and the team worked the B-train set as they were for about a year, but have now recently completed a full strip-down and rebuild of the trailers. This has brought them back to spec again, legal for a 30-tonne payload as well as now sporting Clive Taylor Haulage fleet colours.

“It was cool that we were able to get the LT all sorted and back on the road again, and in the fleet colours just before Clive packed up and headed off to Australia. He was absolutely stoked to see it parked in the yard and wearing the Clive Taylor livery. I think he was all set to jump in the cab and get back to work,” Sooty says with a smile and a laugh. Being completely honest, who could have blamed him.

The LT Super-Liner is a truck from an era of trucking that we are fast realising was the pinnacle of the mechanical machine. A time where the beast was tamed by the operator behind the steering wheel, swinging off the gear lever. Yes, we now live in different times, but Sooty and the Clive Taylor Haulage team certainly have proven here that there is still a place in the pride for an animal of this nature.