Darrell Estes of Class Act Trucking out of Danville, Kentucky, I met this past week at the inaugural edition of the Large Cars and Guitars truck show in Kodak, Tennessee. Longtime owner-operator Estes, who hauled long-distance coal out of Eastern Kentucky north in the 1990s and earlier, then rebooted his business in 2014 with a Peterbilt 359 he’s since retired, was showing off another pair of 359s he’s put quite a lot of work into the last several years, even as he’s operating a heavy coil-hauling business.
His soon-to-be-regular runner is this 1987 359, fresh out of the shop and repowered with a mechanical Caterpillar 3406C. Both the motor and the truck itself were purchased from prior owners Estes knew well from his area. He bided his time on the truck for 20 years as it sat in the previous owner’s shop after the original Cummins motor went down early this century.
For the mechanical Cat, too, Estes waited out the owner, who’d rebuilt the engine in total and had it sitting in his shop with intentions to put it in another truck for upward of a year. Estes came along with his plans at the right moment, getting an agreement with the owner to sell the 3406C to place in this rig from the last year Peterbilt made the 359.
Owner-operator Estes, pictured with his other, 1984 showpiece
It’s a beauty, that’s sure.
Estes grew up in trucking around the rig in the early days of his career -- he knew well its original owner -- and always hated the asymmetry of the Luber-finer power-steering canister on the driver's side. As you can see in the video up top, he’s outfitted this 1984 Peterbilt 359 with the classic “dead-giveaway” breather treatment for the model now on that side.
