‘You can take the man out of the machine, but you can never take the machine out of the man.’ If you were going to sum up Steve Martin in one sentence, that might be it. Vocational trucker to the core, this year, the Dunedinite celebrates 20 years in business, and 45 years in an industry that’s wound into his DNA. The latest addition to his boutique fleet is typical Steve Martin – a reflection of its owner’s passion and purpose.

Vegan, plant-based (they’re not the same evidently), carnivore, paleo, magnesium, CoQ-10, ginseng, cross-fit, Bikram yoga, cupping, blah, blah, blah! Every day, we’re bombarded by ‘experts’ telling us how to enhance our health and wellbeing through diet, supplements, introspective journeys, bizarre treatments, or some variation of an age-old exercise. But no one seems to be researching the health benefits of the only thing that really matters. The one thing usurping all other contenders in the title race for life’s ultimate elixir … happiness. The truth is, you can eat whatever you like, pop a million pills and potions, sit chanting cross-legged on a hilltop with only a loincloth covering your whatsits, smear yourself in a Himalayan salt sludge, or exercise to the point of collapse: it all counts for shit if you’re not happy. Without happiness, you’ll be ill, grumpy, and drink for all the wrong reasons.

Both Mick Jagger and I know this to be true. I don’t know Mick at all – sadly – but I do know at 80 years young, the buzz he gets from standing in front of an adoring crowd while delivering what only he can more than compensates for an offstage life outrageously lived.

Me? Well, I’m in New Zealand’s garden city, Christchurch, in front of Steve Martin’s brand new 8×4 T610 Kenworth tractor with 860mm integral Aero roof sleeper. The truck is hooked to his four-axle Convair bulk- powder semi-tanker, and as I stand, staring in bewilderment, I know exactly why Mick is still prancing around the stage at four score years. Something is coursing through my veins, purging every bad thing I’ve imbibed over the past month, leaving me completely refreshed, revitalised, and believing I can run a mile in bare feet over broken glass. I have no doubt that ‘thing’ is happiness.

At that moment Rod Stewart himself appears. No, not the fake singing one, New Zealand’s own trucking one. The real one: Steve Martin, the man whose name is on the sleeper of this fine motor carriage. He’s picked up his industry nickname due to a more than uncanny resemblance to the sandpapery-voiced bard – who, incidentally, turns 80 himself next year.

Steve’s got 17 years up his sleeve on the two octogenarian rockers, but he does share something in common with both – an absolute love and devotion to what he’s spent his working life doing, and it’s instantly apparent the moment he arrives at the scene with shades and swept-back hair. At 63 – going on 23 – a big grin appears and he says, “Cowabunga dude! Is that cool or what?” Only he could get away with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle greeting at 63.

“Yeah mate. That’s cool all right.”

Four’s company

Like the Knowles’ Kenworth K220 or the James’ Scania 770S, there’s a lot to unpack here. If we’re being brutally honest, Kenworth’s T610 8×4 tractor in non-SAR posture sporting an integral sleeper is a machine you could get horribly wrong in the looks stakes unless you’re a true aficionado. Like its forebears from another era, the T600A, 602 and 604, you’re not starting with a classic block of clay from which to sculpt your beauty like you are with say, a bluff K-model cab, or bonneted T9/C5. Curved bonnets, set-back curvy guards, a low stance, integral sleeper cab, a heavily raked A-pillar – and adding even more cosmetic complexity over cousins of the past, a second-steer axle!

Lucky then the label ‘aficionado’ is perfect for Steve, truck-mad since he first opened his eyes and looked at the world. Nor is he alone. Nephew Reece has the diesel chromosome somewhere in his DNA double helix and plays a vital role in day-to-day operations and the presentation of the gear. Together, he and his uncle are a great duo.

Nor is this their first T610 rodeo. Regular readers will recall Steve’s first Kenworth T610, a stunning 6×4 tractor with 600mm integral sleeper, winning the Top Truck spot in March 2021. That unit tows a B-train bulk-powder unit Steve built new a year or so before, towed by his Freightliner Argosy prior to the first 610 arriving. In the hands of Reece and Craig Hayward, the first T610 has just clocked over 850,000km and the trailers 1,400,000km – not that you’d know looking at them.

Of course, one of the greatest cosmetic enhancements you can give to a truck is to put a tanker behind it. Tubes, barrels, or bulk powder, there are few trucks that don’t look cool towing a tanker, and if you’re going to ‘top of the pops’ of the tanker genre itself, then bulk powder takes some heading off. The new truck tows a 14.1m Convair five-hopper quad-steer and the beauty of that is the balance the quad brings to the 8×4 tractor. There are four axles and a natural rake front and back, making the whole thing look like something akin to the bullet train.

But, of course, balance and symmetry are only the start and Steve is quick to extol the virtues of the lower South Island truck customising scene – a pool of talent he says is the equal of anywhere and one he reckons is largely an undiscovered jewel.

“Ferg at McCormick Motor Bodies in Dunedin is a magician,” he says. “They set this whole thing up and it’s just faultless; they’re craftsmen. Look at the boltless guards and that fabrication behind the sleeper to tidy up gaps and make it all look seamless … the vents made to look like light surrounds, the deck plating – I just think it’s next level.

“Likewise, sparky Tony Mansfield at Harrex Downing and Little, who wired up the 130-plus Peterson marker lights. “The workmanship is absolutely on point.

“Then there’s the paint. Elite in Tīmaru. I think they’re without peer to be honest, and Andrew [Geddes] at Timaru Signs and Graphix has always done my signwriting. I don’t even tell him what I want. He asks but I just say, ‘It’s your canvas. Go for it!’ And look what comes back. I seriously believe we have the best craftspeople down south. I really do.”

There you have it, then! With two great family minds and a bunch of artisan craftspeople in action, the 8×4 tractor was always destined for spectacular – so much so that it earned one of the coveted spots inside the big gala event at the recent 100 Years of Kenworth celebrations at Mystery Creek.

All about perspective

Make no mistake, as happy a place as it is, Steve Martin Contracting is another truckers’ trucking company, and if you’re not a full-immersion type, Darwin’s theory might well play out. That’s not saying anything about some adherence to archaic work practices to prove your worthiness, far from it. Like so many of recent, Steve says running the way we did back in the day is long gone, and keeping it tidy removes noise from the business and makes it more enjoyable to boot. No, the Darwin thing is more about who you are as a person … you know … working – trucks, eating – trucks, sleeping – trucks, TV – trucks, holidays – trucks … yeah, you get it. Testament to that is the nature of the operation versus the effort that goes into the machines. As you’ll read below, downtime is an ugly word at SMC, and some of the fleet family amass absurd mileages in no time at all. You would forgive Steve all day long if he were to take a sausage factory approach to his mechanical charges, yet every one is a showpiece, tastefully customised to within an inch of its life. Euro trucks are presented Euro-cool, and US gear US/Antipodean-cool … and never the styles shall meet. In short, presenting a plain white ‘sausage’ of freight utility to effect the daily transport requirement in this operation would be akin to hacking your head off with a teaspoon handle. Cool on the outside is just as essential as inside the fridge van his Scania tows, and vital in the happiness culture, mood and productivity of the business.

It’s interesting when you think how many of the South Island’s devoted and slick operators come out of the Goodman Fielder camp. There is no better marketing – or assurance of product care – than passion, presentation and personal standards, and someone in the big show knows that implicitly.

‘Tap it out, Larry’

Still one of the coolest trucking catchphrases ever, although in all honesty, the days of trucks consistently clocking up big annual distances in the North Island – and even the top of the South, for that matter – are largely a thing of the past. There are simply too many people, poor and inadequate roads, few bypasses, and ever more delays at the points of load and unload.

Below mid-Canterbury, however, a couple of those factors begin to abate – there are fewer people, and as a result, better roads. Steve’s whole career has been around big mileage trucks – double-shifting and familiarity with big annual distances are his normal. However, there are big distances, and then … there are big distances. The 6×4 T610 in front of the B-train is hovering around 850,000km as it passes its third birthday, yet even that will induce a yawn from its owner. The triple-shifted Scania S620 on the Dunedin/ Christchurch, Dunedin/Central Otago milk and produce run has just pipped 1,100,000km at just two years and three months old. Yes, folks, you read that right. Suffice to say, horsepower in this yard always begins with a ‘6’.

“I run a Guardian Seeing Machine in that truck also and really rate it as a safety device.

“Yeah, it keeps you on your toes. The run is pretty much non-stop; the truck only switches off for its weekly service. The previous truck on the run was a Mercedes-Benz Actros 2663, and that was a bloody good machine. It was simply the support that let it down.”

A new S620 Scania was in the throes of being commissioned as we went to press. “Given the lead times on gear in recent years, the rule of thumb on that run is: on the day a new truck goes to work, you pretty much order its replacement.

“We’ll need to start thinking about the 6×4 610 soon, also. The trailers can have a spruce- up sometime next year. They’re on 1,400,000km and in need of a bit of cosmetic here and there. Stones, grit, CMA, [ice road treatment] and even flour, they all give them arseholes.”

Flour power

Time for action. We are off to Nelson to deliver 27,500kg of flour into the Molenberg- branded silo at Goodman Fielder’s Nelson bakery. That payload puts us at about 47.7 tonne gross out of a potential 48. Light and airy bread might well be fantastic, but the flour tanker arriving at at the bakery arriving in a similar state? Definitely not fantastic. The units are therefore fitted out with SI-Lodec scales in order to ensure the available compliance envelope is optimised. “Wouldn’t be without them,” says Steve. “We can see on the tablet when loading without being in the truck, and when we’re unloading, it’s just another tool to help us know we’re all empty. Also, peace of mind when passing the check stations.”

The big Cummins fired up, Steve engages gear in the hand- stirred transmission and rolls out of the depot on Washbournes Road in Hornby. He winds his way to Main South Road before turning right at The Hub corner onto SH1 north. A quick stop at BP Raeward for the obligatory caffeination, and we all stand back for another moment to take the rig in.

Sitting plumb level, it’s pretty difficult to fault. The Kentweld bumper, grille bars, the stacks are just the right size and length, the Armoury chrome rims contribute to just the right amount of chrome and colour code, and there’s little chance you’ll miss the whole thing with 131 additional Peterson lights on the tractor, another 51 on the semi, plus spots in the grille and green strip lighting. “According to Peter Swan at Convair, I’m the first to put the running lights along the top rail.”

Time’s up, the 610 rolled out and on through Woodend and Amberly before making the west turn at Waipara, just north of the CVST site at Glasnevin. Lucky, it was a lovely autumnal day and the rig made effortless progress up the Balmorals towards Culverden. By the time we reached the wee hamlet an hour and 20 minutes north of Hornby, the caffeine had done its job and bladder relief was required.

Steve operates between 1350 and 1800rpm as rule – tapping into the power bank on lift-off during early shifts to help get the show rolling, and as the ground speed increases, you hear the shifts shorten up, using torque to preserve the impetus gained.

It’s not the big steady climbs or long descents that test your metal in a manual truck. Finding the right sprocket before settling in for the big pull or descent should not present an inordinate challenge. The skill resides on stretches of road like SH7 on the run from Hanmer through the Lewis Pass, and then SH65 and 6 down the Shenandoah on to Murchison and beyond. The rise and fall is relentless in varying grades and therefore road speed, with no consistency in lane width, and of course, constant directional change.

In Steve, I’m instantly reminded of Ray Feki in Tutu and Raewyn Manuel’s Western Star 4884 Ruaumoko (New Zealand Trucking magazine, September 2021). Steve lives up to every expectation you have of him when it comes to the execution of the trucking art form. His pedigree and decades in the industry manifest themselves in abundance. He is completely at ease in his machine; it may as well be a Toyota Corolla. The shifter simply slides from one gear to another mid-conversation with no apparent signs he’s even listening to the truck – and yet we all know to what degree that isn’t the case. What the Steve Martins, Ray Fekis and Guy Knowles of the world tell us is how much the so-called boffins who bleat on about changing gears being a dangerous, inefficient, fatigue-inducing distraction are, in fact, speaking through a hole in their hindmost quarters. What they are telling us is just how appallingly we’re doing at training the new generation when it comes to understanding their machines at the seat-of-the-pants level.

“The Scania is a lovely truck and ideal for the work it’s on with multiple drivers. You wouldn’t find a quieter and smoother truck to drive, and I’ve never taken the AMT out of auto; it’s that good. But as trucks go, it’s just not me, you know? There’s nothing to do. It’s a me thing.”

The X-15 provides the perfect backdrop to events in the cab. Its guttural rumble is more than clearly evident and it certainly gets the sound meter working a little higher than we’ve been used to of recent – well into the second half of the 70 and even early 80dB range in times of action. This is truckin’.

What also exercised its presence was the large white thing full of flour hooked to the back. Running along past the Boyle River and climbing the Lewis toward the Goings section the semi was always ‘there’, and Steve says you need to be more cautious than in the B-train.

He’s a huge fan of the Convair product – “It’s the Rolls-Royce of powder tankers” were his exact words. However, neither does he take longevity for granted, making one purchasing decision he says pays handsomely when it comes to relieving stress in the units he owns – oscillating fifth-wheels. “This one runs a Holland, and the whole fleet is on oscillators. It’s just a thing I have. There’s so much twisting and raking in the course of a day’s work and that stress has to go somewhere. I’ve got two on the B-train and Convair were a bit cautious of that originally, saying we wouldn’t feel what the back trailer was up to, but that’s all about the people you have working for you, I reckon. The Scania on the milk – that’s got one. Where we unload in Queenstown, the truck is on a severe angle while the trailer is level. Normally, a fridge trailer will let go first in the rear door frames, but that one’s mint. I’m convinced it’s the fifth wheel.”

The in-cab ride is certainly influenced by the big trailer and there’s the occasional nudge from the second steer, but nothing to write home about. In all respects, it’s a Kenworth doing exactly what they do best, telling you how they’re coping.

The 610 is barely off the mark with only 15,000km on the clock, but she scaled the steepest part of the Lewis in sixth high-split (12th) at 1350rpm and 45km/h. As the note lowers, the cab goes quiet for a moment, and two truckheads enjoy the sound of 2779Nm (2050lb/ft) of torque taking responsibility for progress away from the 459kW (615hp) of power at around 1400rpm.

In terms of spec, it’s a standard affair with a 22 series 18-speed manual Eaton Roadranger behind the 15L Cummins X-15, and to the rear of that, Meritor MT21-165 GPs on Kenworth AG460 suspension.

Descending the other side the Jake happily holds the show at 1750rpm and 40km/h in fifth high-split (10th). Without prompting, Steve expressed his opinion on how essential it is to be able to stop dead on loaded descents in the event something is waiting around the next blind corner.

We round up the Shenandoah section north of Springs Junction and roll out through Maruia, Murchison and along the Buller River at Kawatiri toward the Hope Saddle. The surefootedness of the chassis in this country explains in part why this truck brand has earned the place it has in trucking folklore.

Chris Gray is Steve’s man at Southpac, and Steve speaks highly of the relationship. “He rings you back! It’s that simple. If he doesn’t know the answer, he says, ‘I don’t know the answer Steve. But I’ll ring you back’, and he does. Every time. He’s an ex-Southern Viking man originally, and started in parts, so good habits were entrenched early. And he’s bloody easy to talk to.

“I have to mention Dean Cooper, also. He’s awesome. Anything you want, Dean can get it for you. I wanted train horns, I told Dean … I got train horns.”

Surprise surprise

The makers of Dr Who certainly had a hand in Kenworth’s integrated sleeper range. Inside, the 860mm jobbie is a tardis, I kid you not. Outside, it looks low, sleek, and snug – inside it’s a big space. Steve’s north of six-foot and he has no issues at all standing up straight from the driver’s seat under a roof line that arcs up and away to the rear.

Grey Graphite is the official moniker for the buttoned vinyl trim.

Storage-wise, there are lockers above the driver and passenger, front and overhead, and under the bunk, which are also accessible from the outside – as is the bunk itself, #howcoolaresleeperdoors! There’s also shelving up high either side of the sleeper, one accommodating the telly in this case. Between the steers on the right is a toolbox, and there’s a battery box on the left.

Hard plastics accommodate the high traffic areas and there’s woodgrain on the door-pulls and dash.

The 2.1m cab is a fantastic place to live and work. There’s nothing to say about the dash that’s not already been said – a clear binnacle, big, easy-to-get- to buttons, great heating and air conditioning, and superb driving position. At some point, that binnacle will go full-digi and catch the K220 – who’d have thought we’d ever be heard saying that!

Steve opted not to have the infotainment system by choice, saying in his opinion, the traditional set-ups give better sound and longer, more stable range.

There’s plenty of glass and superb mirrors. Visibility out front is fab with the bonnet raking steeply. Those car-like A pillars and bar-setting mirrors mean left/right clearance in the cab is as good as it gets in a fixed-mirror world.

The interior hasn’t escaped the Steve Martin vocational truck-nut treatment. Silver bezels adorn the binnacle gauge cluster and our friends at PearlCraft have provided the steering wheel and shifter head. Interestingly, it’s a PearlCraft-ed Kenworth SmartWheel, which runs on an exchange basis by all accounts, meaning you send them yours, and they supply one that’s already done.

What I did really like … a lot … was the vinyl boot around the shifter. Often the custom heads look a little weird with a thin shaft under them – 10/10 for that.

Finishing it off is red strip lighting, which gives the whole thing a cool burgundy glow. To quote a ‘Martinism’ on that…”It’s a me thing.”

Your hose should be wobbly

“The only place they’re [both Kenworths] in low-range is climbing the lookout point in Dunedin,” said Steve as we crested the Spooner’s hill north of Nelson in seventh high-split (16th) at 38km/h and 1750rpm. At the foot of the range on the northern side, we pass through the string of hamlets between Hope and Richmond before arriving at Stoke and the bakery on Bolt Road.

“I was a bit worried about the big semi when I first got it. We can’t get the B-train into the Dunedin bakery without splitting it and using a wee shunter we have for the back half. Although the math said we could get the quad in there hooked to this one, theory versus reality … you know? I took it down for a first run-through, and it does fit, but man, it’s tight. There is no margin for error.”

Nelson is the complete opposite, it could not be easier – drive in the gate and a straight back alongside the silo. We park for the night, awaiting the morning unload.

As with the first Kenworth, Steve’s gone for a PTO-driven blower mounted under the deck plate on the left. It’s a superb installation by Skookum, the local agent for the Convair product.

Powder tankers – I’ve always thought them to be a scary thing. There are horror stories about implosions when pressure differentials get out of whack, and explosions … funnily enough, when pressure differentials get out of whack – yikes! I was determined to understand the fine art of powder delivery from a gun!

Loading is easy – open the hatches on the top and the flour just drops in via a sock from some magical place above. But then comes the getting-it-out bit, which normally means discharging into a hopper high in the sky. For that, you need a gravity-defying transport medium – enter, fast-moving compressed air.

First though, Steve hooks up the earth wires – yes, like most powders, flour can get all charged up during the unload process, and when you combine that with the considerable heat the discharge air generates zooming along the pipe, it’s best that electrical energy is given somewhere to go. Not doing so can be another reason things don’t go as planned.

Steve connects one end of the main discharge line to the blower behind the cab and the other to the input pipe running up the silo from the base. He fires up the X-15 and sits her on about 900rpm, and we are all go. That gets air moving along the main discharge line. One or two at a time, he then starts the aerators located in the bottom of each of the five trailer hoppers. They disturb and fluff up the flour, encouraging it out of the discharge tubes and into the main discharge line where it’s swished up and away into the silo and on to Molenberg heaven. The third member of the discharge trio is the top line, which essentially puts a compressed air hat on the flour in the hoppers so it does, in fact, continue to leave the show as the load disappears. You can imagine not having the ‘air hat’ when there’s bugger all left in the hopper. It would all billow around inside and be hard to get in the exit line.

Steve can control any of those functions individually, so as simple as it sounds in principle, playing the bulk-powder discharge symphony is a learned art. The reason I say symphony is he can’t actually see anything; it’s all pressure gauges, watching the discharge hose out the back – if it’s wobbling steadily, that’s a good thing, and also the groans the hoppers make as the air does its thing. Good gauges, good sounds, and a wobbly hose mean good things; bad gauges, bad sounds, and a stiff or flaccid hose mean bad things – like blockages. Having witnessed it all, the trailer does really sound alive, ‘telling’ you when its tummies are empty or unhappy.

Interestingly, the whole thing happens at about 20psi. When you consider a truck tyre can be anything from 80 to 110psi, it shows just how complacent we’ve all become around high-pressure vessels keeping our trucks and trailers rolling.

There are also pneumatic hammers that ‘tap-tap’ the hoppers to loosen any residual.

Done well, it’s a cinch, and just over an hour after arriving, the discharge hose is being packed away in its immaculate chrome carrier.

Making every day count

One thing we all learn as we get older is we don’t get many days, and every one wasted will never be refunded. Not all are blessed to the extent Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and Steve Martin are, where true happiness resides in their vocation of choice, and the mere act of working is a buzz.

Steve Martin has proved that in the world of trucking, outrageous uptime and presentation are not antagonistic bedmates as long as your passion matches what achieving both demands. The quid pro quo of that is when it’s your passion, you don’t realise the demand.

When you are that person, however, what truck do you choose? Well, that’s always individual, but it is the Steve Martins of the world that Kenworth builds its product for: vocational operators where the truck is far more than a tool of transport utility – trucks that can be individualised and not only tell the world what it is you do, but who you are.

There was a lot of chat around the T610 pre-launch, in the same way there was pre the T600A back in the day. They were both very different-looking Kenworths, in the case of the 610, sleek with car-like A pillars. Would they encompass everything a Kenworth needed to be? Would they satisfy the Steve Martins of the world?

Not all change is bad. It’s often a case of moving with the times, finding your place in them without compromising who you are. In its products, Kenworth gives people the opportunity to do just that.

In conclusion, then, I give you the Kenworth T610 and Steve Martin. A product that can teach you a lot about values-based evolution, and a man who can teach us a lot about life and where its value truly resides.

SPECIFICATIONS

Kenworth T610 8×4 860mm Aero Roof Integral Sleeper