Grant Schofield might be younger than most of our Back Down the Road a Bit Gallery crew to date, but there’s no doubting his passion for trucks. And the way he carries himself among the fraternity is about as old-school as it gets. If you were going to set up a Truck Tours of the World enterprise, Grant would be your man without a doubt. His interest is most certainly global, and as passionate about the local kit as he is, this month, we’re also going outside Kiwi borders to look at the work of a man who is truly a global citizen.

“When I was still at school, my home was within riding distance from the Auckland port. During the school holidays, I would spend most of the day taking photos at the Tinley Street intersection. For me, the interest was out-of-town trucks.”

Then I came across a website called www.toprun.ch.

For some reason, this immaculate Foden has stayed my favourite. Not sure if it’s because you didn’t see many tidy Fodens then or because multi-use combinations have always interested me.

It was a library of trucking photographs from different people, shot all over the world, with an emphasis on the 1970s and 1980s Europe-to- the-Middle East trucking runs. One photographer in particular, Claude Barutel, fascinated me. He had an amazing collection of trucks from every country you could think of. I don’t know anything about him other than he used to post on his Flickr account and has written for magazines and websites, but the photos he had of trucks, trucking scenes, and trucking people in foreign places really grabbed my imagination. I decided I wanted to experience these countries, their trucks, the people, their unique trucking industries, and the problems they faced.

“Following the obligatory Kiwi trip to Australia to start, my next big trip was to Alaska and Canada. The whole purpose of going to Alaska was the Dalton Highway. I found that it was very slow-going – 20 trucks in eight hours, albeit all proper ice-road trucks. Canada proved much more profitable.”

1) Alaska was next on the list. Although I managed some neat photos on the gravel track that makes up the Dalton Highway, this one was my favourite.

2) Holland has a fantastic truck culture, and the Truckstar Festival is definitely a bucket-list event for anyone passionate about trucks. All the cool kids run the big horsepower trucks and cart between Holland and the Nordic countries

3) It wouldn’t be complete without this truck – due to TR giving me my start and the fact I just loved looking after it. This image was shot at the Taupo Truck Show several years ago. You just don’t see CHs looking like this anymore!

4) It only costs $190 to hire a driver and car in India and go out to take truck photos. Super happy drivers, but the state of some of the gear is crazy – definitely a full-on experience!!