Owner-operators across the country probably remember the LTL doubles and triples hauler Viking Freight, before a buyout by FedEx folded the company under the FedEx Freight umbrella with another, American Freightways, in the early part of this century.
Today’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features my talk through the 1983 Kenworth cabover you see here. It’s the work of Steve Sprenger, a commercial real estate broker for the last couple of decades following work in trucking with about a decade hauling for Viking from the mid-1980s. Sprenger has finally concluded what’s been a decade-and-then-some-long project in a full custom restoration of the single-drive-axle COE, a former Viking Freight truck he located in a yard in Northern California.
Initially enlisting the help of NorCal Kenworth to make sure the rig was roadworthy for a trip back to his home area down South in Orange County those years ago, detail work commenced and took on a life of its own over time. The end result is a tribute, he believes, to a company’s drivers who took as much pride in what they did as did he. Take a listen: