There’s nothing I like more than talking to good old boys about their memories of good old days of trucking. In this case my awesome colleague Mr Stephen Jenkins. Steve has been in transport for most of his working career and ever since I’ve known him (probably 4 or 5 years now), he’s been promising me some photos of his owner driver years. If my notes are right, the owner driver years were from 1971 through to 1986. Most of this was on European work, but I know Steve did make a few trips to the Middle East, although he wasn’t a regular.

The first photo he finally got round to sharing is the awesome Volvo F88 above. this was YBE 540K, an early F88 with a split screen and top mounted window wipers. Steve bought the truck and had it painted red, black and white chevrons on the bumper and 4 spotlights under said bumper. Interestingly Steve said that the 4 spots were mounted under the bumper to help with the fog on the Italian mountain passes such as Mont Cenis. The standard lights on the truck from Volvo just weren’t enough to help when the fog came down, put the spotlights under the bumper so they were down as close to the road as possible. Makes perfect sense when you think about it and there was me just thinking it was an early fashion statement! When Steve went to see Ian McKellar about some work, Ian agreed Steve could start working with him as he had a red truck that matched Ian’s colours. The only catch was, Ian insisted a white stripe be painted on the cab. Steve was quite happy with that but only if it didn’t cost him any money, so Ian agreed he’d pay for the stripe to be painted on. Can’t beat a little anecdote.

The list below is of all the trucks Steve owned as an owner driver. I’d very much like it if you could all try and find any photos of the other Volvo’s listed please. I’m sure there will be some somewhere and I’m not just talking about Steve’s loft!

YBE 540K – Volvo F88 240

SLL 62L – Volvo F88 240

OGS 49M – Volvo F88 240

NHL 618X – Volvo F89

KPU 13V – Mercedes-Benz

The Merc below is a 1632 that Steve bought 2nd hand. During his time owning the truck he managed to clock up enough KM, that by the time it was retired from his ownership it had around 1.6 Million KM on the clock. Regular trips to Italy accounted for a lot of the mileage. Even though the engine was a 320HP, V10 with an 8 speed ZF gearbox, Steve was able to get a decent 7mpg out of the big German.