In last August’s issue of New Zealand Trucking, we caught up with Simon Pederson of Tirau-based PLL in the company Freightliner Century Class. This month, Anthony Buckley of PLL contacted us with another candidate for induction into the club.

Stray Cat is a 2002 Freightliner Argosy with a Caterpillar C15 and Roadranger 22-series manual gearbox combination, with just on 2,000,000km on the clock.

“It has been in our fleet near-on four years now,” explains Anthony. “It was in Ward Demolition’s fleet for some years, and Simon purchased it from them. It is one of those trucks that you just get in and go. There are those little things that wear out, but we have been right through it and replaced many of those items that might niggle, and it pays off because you can get on and get through the work without interruption. The only thing it has let me down with was a drive belt on the Bombay Hills – that’s just one of those things. The C15 has had one major rebuild that we are aware of – about 300,000km ago.”

Stray Cat is in extremely tidy shape for its age. “We suspect it started life with Otorohanga Freightlines, as a bit of their green sneaks out in a chip or a scratch every now and again. But it is a credit to the drivers who have pedalled the truck in its previous ownership because everything is still in great condition. It has been well looked after over the years, that’s for sure,” says Anthony.

“The bulk of our work is flat-deck; we specialise in doing those ugly loads – loads that aren’t user- friendly. We are proud of the fact that we do it right and do it well, so alongside that, we need reliability.” Looking over its history, Stray Cat appears to have reliability in spades.