Rory McGillivray was parked at the side of the road in his 2013 T409 SAR, waiting to offload at the local Countdown, when Gavin Myers happened to be driving past and spotted his gleaming Brett Marsh B-train. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity for a yarn with a driver from this respected local fleet, Gavin pulled over and introduced himself.

A Tauranga local, Rory has been driving trucks for the past three or four years, something he knew he wanted to do straight from school. Rory’s father drove stock trucks, and it seemed natural to follow in his footsteps.

Rory started doing a bit of hiab work, then decided to take a chance and ask Brett for a job. Normally, Rory does floating work, so he gets to go pretty much anywhere and everywhere. The T409 is his usual truck, and during the weeks of lockdown, he’d been mainly running to Palmerston North and back. However, on the day, he was pulling a set of trailers that came up overnight from Palmerston North, loaded with fresh produce for Rory to distribute to some of the local Countdowns.

His favourite part of the job is the machines themselves. “I just love trucks,” Rory says. “I love driving them, I love the noise, and I love polishing them… they’re awesome.”

Rory’s vexing question was to choose an ideal holiday location: he had a choice of the Gold Coast’s beaches or the Big Apple’s hustle and bustle. Rory’s true-blue truckie answer came without hesitation: “I’d head over to the States so I can see their large cars and Peterbilts!”