The restoration of a rare 1960s-era R model Oshkosh could never be anything but a labour of love, especially when so few of them made it Down Under in the first place. From it came great friendships and great adventures.
Dave Sauer says he didn’t manage to uncover much information about the 1966 R model Oshkosh he bought many years ago – one of many the Australian owns.
“It came to Australia in 1966 or 1967; that’s when it was first registered. I don’t know its first owner or its history – I bought it as a wreck in 2005.”
Dave says he found the truck in a wrecking yard. By then, many parts had already been stripped off it, so bringing it back to life was a bit of a mission. He systematically replaced all the missing parts.
“It wasn’t in working order – I had to replace the diffs, gearbox and the engine. While it had its original chassis, the cab had rusted out so I took one off another truck that had a better cab.”
He was pleased to keep the original chassis as it allowed him to retain the serial number (No.9561), assigned by the Oshkosh factory in Wisconsin.
“It was the second one that came to Australia. A total of 52 came to Australia, and I’ve got 10 of them – in various states of disrepair – from about 1966 when the first one came out, until they stopped bringing them in about 1974 – only about eight years.
“This is the only one of that model, and I didn’t want it to go to scrap. I bought it to save the history of it.”
The Oshkosh is fitted with a 3306 Caterpillar engine and a 10-speed Roadranger transmission. The suspension is Hendrickson, and it has SSHD diffs. Dave says the truck needs some weight on the back to make it ride a bit better, so when he takes it on runs, he loads it with two 3306 Cat engines and a D346 Cat.
He says he has loved Oshkosh trucks since he was a young boy.
“They are just right. When I was a kid going to school, there was one that was a log truck. It had a little bit of history; it was a local truck from where I grew up and I wanted to own that truck. It only had two or three owners and I knew where it was, only the owners would never sell it to me.”
In recent years, Dave managed to buy that truck, but its current state means it will never go again.
“It’s very, very sad – it’s all rusted, but at least I saved it from going to scrap.”
Dave says the restoration of the 1966 R model was done in a bit of a rush, taking only 12 months.
In preparation for the 2012 South Island rally, he stripped down the truck in Australia and sent it to New Zealand in a container. He put it back together at Alf Williamson’s yard in Putāruru.
The Oshkosh is painted in the colours of Kurrajon Contracting, the heavy haulage company he owned and ran until he retired.
“All my other trucks are painted in that colour scheme.”
During the time it was being finished off here, Dave flew over from Australia and took part in about half a dozen classic truck events in both the North and South Islands.
He owned this particular Oshkosh until a few years ago – it is now in the guardianship of Vic Draper, and the transfer of ownership is a story in itself!
Vic says the first time he saw the truck was when it drove past Motor Truck Distributors in Palmerston North, and the sound of it caught his attention. A few days later, Dave drove it into Vic’s yard in Pāuatahanui on his way south for the South Island classic truck run.
The engine in the Oshkosh at the time was burning a lot of oil, and when Dave spied an engine Vic had in his workshop, he wanted to buy it.
Vic told Dave he ran about 25 of them in his earthmoving business, and he didn’t really want to sell it.
“It had come out of a truck and it had Jacobs engine brakes on it, which is rare for a 3306. I believe there are four that have Jacobs engine brakes on them, and I own all four of them. So it was quite rare and Dave was absolutely fizzing over it. He wanted it.”
He says that over the years, the pair became friends. Now and then, Dave would ask if Vic would sell the engine to him, and every time he was told no. Vic would also ask Dave if he would sell the Oshkosh to him and the answer was the same – it wasn’t for sale.
Sometime later, Dave contacted Vic and again asked if there was any chance he would sell the engine.
“I said no because I still didn’t want to sell it. I got off the phone, and I probably took pity on him if that’s the right term, and I rang him up a few days later and said, ‘I tell you what, Dave, you can have the engine on one condition. I’ll send it over to you and you stick it on the truck, and Scott (Vic’s son) and I want to be able to come over and drive it sometimes.’”
Vic says the engine was missing a few bits, so he made up the missing parts, built a frame for it, and had it shipped to Dave.
About three months later, fellow classic truck enthusiasts Paul and Steve McNae (born in New Zealand but now living in Australia) organised a run around Brisbane, and Vic and Scott headed over to take part.
After arriving in Brisbane, the pair went out to dinner with the McNaes.
“At dinner I said, ‘Where the hell’s Dave?’ and they said he was mucking around with the truck because he still had a few bits to do on it. We had flown in at nighttime; it was dark, and we were supposed to be leaving around eight the following morning.”
Vic decided to go around to Dave’s and see how he was getting on.
“We got there about nine or whatever time it was, and here’s Dave – he’s got the truck outside because there’s no room in his workshop. He’s got a forklift with one of those big workshop lights hanging off the forks. There were moths flying around the light, and he’s putting the engine in!
“He hasn’t had it running, it didn’t have any guards on it, it didn’t have the fuel tanks on it, didn’t have the deck on the back, it didn’t even have the starter in it. He put the starter in, and it wouldn’t turn over. It was a shambles.”
Vic says he and Scott removed the starter and replaced some parts, and made and hooked up the throttle.
“We got it going. It was midnight or 1 o’clock or whatever. And obviously we were supposed to be leaving at 8 o’clock that morning.”
After a few hours’ sleep, they went back to Dave’s and found he was still working on the truck. So they pitched in to get the guards, fuel tank and deck on, finally getting under way about 10.30am.
“That was a pretty good effort. To add to the story, I hadn’t seen the engine running, so we fired the thing up, and it was fuming real bad, and I said to Dave, ‘It’s a bloody good thing I didn’t charge you for the engine!”
“He said, ‘Oh bugger it, we’ll just run it and if it blows up, it blows up.’”
Vic says the further they drove the truck, the better the engine got.
“By the end of the run, it was going bloody grouse, no fuming, nothing.”
The pair enjoyed that run, and decided to do Haulin’ the Hume a couple of years later.
“From Brisbane down to Sydney is a reasonably big trip in itself, so we organised trucks with transport trailers and drove down. There was me and Scotty and my brother joined us, and we drove the Oshkosh down and did Haulin’ the Hume, then spent two days driving back as well.”
Vic says they had an absolute ball, driving around Australia in a truck he had long admired and attempted to buy a number of times.
“After Haulin’ the Hume, Dave turned around to me and said, ‘You already own the engine. Why don’t you buy the rest of the truck and take it to New Zealand, and I can come over there and drive it?’
“I said that probably wasn’t a bad idea, and we agreed on a price, and I paid him the money, and he said he’d get it to New Zealand.”
Shipping the truck was not exactly straightforward. Dave had organised the paperwork and had to get the Oshkosh to the wharf in Brisbane by a certain day and time. Also being shipped was a scraper Vic had bought.
“Well, he left home probably about an hour before and got in by the skin of his bloody teeth!”
Vic thought the vehicles were being sent to Wellington, but it turned out they were going to Auckland.
“They went through customs in Auckland. There were some issues with the scraper; they ended up cutting holes in the side of it. The truck went through customs all right, but it sat on the wharf for about two weeks and then it and the scraper went on another boat to Wellington. I got the truck maybe three or four days before the Long Lap and we had to get it complied and a CoF before we could take it.”
As anyone needing a CoF in a hurry knows, the process can be frustratingly slow.
“It was a bloody battle. We ended up pushing like hell, and I think I got the CoF on Friday afternoon at three o’clock – and the run started on the Monday, I think, that was how tight it was.”
The Oshkosh arrived in New Zealand in late 2018 for the North Island Long Lap, and it’s been in Vic’s shed ever since. Dave borrowed it to do the Long Lap again in 2022 and he plans to do this year’s South Island classic truck run as well. He’ll also be coming over to help trucking legend Dave Carr restore an Oshkosh he owns.
“The cab’s pretty badly rusted on it, so he’s bought a spare cab off me to restore his,” says Dave. “I’ve sent a container over to New Zealand with parts and stuff for his future restorations, including the cab.”
There are not many Oshkosh trucks in New Zealand. Dave says two bonneted models came here, and he’s been told there were 17 or 18 cabovers.
“They were a lot later models – about 1974 to 1975 – and may have even been later than that.
“No one can tell me the exact number that came to New Zealand, but they all came through Motor Truck Distributors.”
He is working on restoring another Oshkosh and says he’s had to use part of one of the other trucks to do that. He also has a number of wrecked trucks that he cannibalises for parts.
Dave says the vintage truck scene in Australia is not as good as it is in New Zealand. He got into classic trucks through friends, the McNae brothers.
“That’s why we like coming over. Paul has four trucks over here. For the North Island run back in 2014, Barry Caulfield gave me a truck to use.
“I guess it’s the fact you can use the trucks and meet all these people – the camaraderie.”
While the Oshkosh may now permanently reside in Vic’s shed, he wants to make one thing perfectly clear.
“It’s Dave’s truck; Dave restored it. It’s still got his name on the bloody driver’s door! It might be in my care, but the way I see it, it’s still Dave’s truck. It sits in my shed and Dave comes over and drives it whenever he likes.”
QUICK SPECS
1966 OSHKOSH R 64E 1638
| GVM: | 23,000kg |
| GCM: | 50,000kg |
| Engine: | Caterpillar 3306 |
| Engine capacity: | 11L |
| Maximum power: | 300hp |
| Transmission: | Road Ranger RT9510 |
| Diff ratio: | 4.11 |
| Front axles: | Rockwell 16,000lb |
| Rear axle: | Rockwell 44,000 SSHD |
| Rear suspension: | Hendrickson |
| Brakes: | S-CAM |
| Tyre size: | 11R 22.5 |
| Electrical: | 12V |
