Castlewood, Virginia-based Kevin Hylton, owner of Little B Enterprises, showed off his piece of trucking history -- a 1975 Brockway U360 -- at the 2023 Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, this past Fall.
Little B, which was celebrating its 50th anniversary last year, does grading, water and sewer work as a contractor.
The 1975 Brockway was originally owned by Kevin's father, Walter "Buck" Hylton, when it was new.
It even participated in protests by coal miners in Washington, D.C., in 1975. Buck Hylton was in the mining business at the time, and took the truck to D.C. to join the protests, as seen here pictured in front of the U.S. Capitol.Video and photos by Lawson Rudisill
Buck Hylton sold the truck, but Kevin found it years later and bought it to restore it. The main goal: to be as original as possible. The Brockway was in pretty rough shape, however, with a good amount of rust and other issues. He and his team had to tear it down to the frame rails and basically start from scratch.
Brockway went out of business in 1977, and finding parts for the project wasn't easy. Many had to be fabricated. Hylton and his team did all the work in-house, led by Hylton's mechanic, Allen Hicks.
Hylton's rebuild of the truck took almost two years to the day, he said. "It took a lot of parts chasing. It's hard to find parts for these things because Brockway went out of business in 1977."
The truck's engine, a 12-cylinder Detroit paired with a 13 speed, is still original -- just refurbished and painted during Hylton's rebuild. The truck's exterior paint is also as close to the original scheme as possible.
It's also got a brand-new interior -- fresh out of 1977.
Hylton said a friend of his in New York worked at the Brockway plant when it closed in 1977, and he bought a lot of interior parts at that time and held onto them through the years. Now, the truck has a "brand new factory interior in it that was produced in 1977," Hylton said.
The truck was the first that Buck Hylton bought, so Kevin dedicated the rebuild to his dad, who "thought I was crazy" for taking on the project, Kevin said. As the truck slowly came back to life as Buck knew it when he owned it, "he fell in love with it again, and he was really proud of it."
Kevin Hylton said the truck was totally finished on a Friday, and three days later on the following Monday, Buck Hylton passed away.
[Related: History in his grasp with 1978 W900A on '96 Dodge chassis, '46 Brockway, more]
Catch plenty more views of the truck in the video up top. For more videos and custom-equipment features delivered to your email inbox, subscribe to Overdrive's weekly Custom Rigs newsletter via this link.
Kevin Hylton: My name is Kevin Hylton. I'm from Castlewood, Virginia. I own Little B Enterprises. We're a contractor. We do grading, and water and sewer work. And we have been in business for 50 years. This year is our 50th year in business.
It's a 1975 Brockway U360. It's got a 12-cylinder twin-turbo Detroit engine in it. It's got a 13-speed transmission and 44 Rockwell rears.
When my dad first bought the truck, we were in the mining business, he was. And in 1975, the coal miners went to Washington to protest some new laws that had been passed. So the way they expressed themselves is everybody took their coal trucks to Washington, D.C. So that picture is a picture of this truck in front of the Capitol Building in 1975. Dad wound up selling this truck, and it wound up in Massachusetts. And I found out about it, and went and got it, and brought it back home to restore it because it was the first truck that my dad had ever bought.
Our main goal when we restored this truck is to make it look as it did when it was delivered new. We had to totally strip the truck down to two frame rails. It was in pretty bad shape, a lot of rust, and we had to just start back. We had to fabricate a lot of parts. We done all the work in-house. My mechanic that works for us, Allen Hicks, done the work, and is absolutely wonderful at what he does. And we had to just completely rebuild this truck.
It took a lot of parts chasing. It's hard to find parts for these things because Brockway went out of business in 1977. And it was a pretty big feat, but we made it happen. So all the lighting on it is as close to original as we could possibly get. The engine was totally refurbished and painted, and it's all original. All the running gear in the truck is original. All new paint, and the colors are very similar to the way it was when it was brand new. We tried to replicate that as close as we could.
Actually, the interior, I found a new interior from a friend in New York that was in the Brockway plant when it closed down in 1977. And this guy had bought it up. And so it's got brand new factory interior in it that was produced in 1977.
It took us two years, almost to the day, to make this happen. We'd done this for my dad. He had sold the truck, and he hardly ever sells anything. And when I found the truck, and told him I was going to go find it and bring it home and restore it, he thought I was crazy. But once he'd seen it in our shop become a truck again, he fell in love with it again. And he was really proud of it. We finished the truck, totally, completely finished it on a Friday, and he passed away the next Monday.
