Road Transport - a history to be proud of...
Advances in technology now allow us to host and showcase large amounts of data, allowing for the creation of a digital archive of the New Zealand road transport environment.
This site hosts a vast amount of footage shot for the creation of the ‘Truck Files – A New Zealand Story’ doco shown on Prime – which goes hand-in-glove with much of what has been shot over the previous twenty years for the Truck Files series of DVD’s, footage that snap-shotted aspects of our industry for prosperity.
Our aim is provide a strongroom for those clips, and others with an historical significance that might otherwise be lost to us.
The benefits of supporting Truckarchive.co.nz
Welcome to the largest on-line collection of road transport related video and photographic content in Australasia.
Constantly growing – as of March 2024 it sits at about 450 pages (including hidden), that hosts over 4,500 images and 4,000 video Vimeo clips.
That’s just the start.
We have over 20,000 images needing scanning and uploading, and over 40 individual video projects we have amassed material for.
If you support this site you are helping us scan our image archive to enlarge the content, and fund the creation of new video content.
This archive was established so that as much of the road transport story transport history can be saved, archived and shared for future video producers and historians, as well as those who have an appreciation of our industry.
Building on 'The Truck Files' story...
Phase 2
The ‘Truck Files’ doco touched on many things lightly, in order to tell the big story about the road transport industry.
Phase 2 of this project will use some of the unseen footage shot for the Truck Files into more in-depth and focused stories about the industry.
Truckarchive houses a substantial amount of video and photographic material, being accumulated to both enlarge our list of special interest clips about the New Zealand road transport industry, and to safeguard our digital story.
In no particular order – here is the short list of subjects that have a large amount of footage in the can, and are ready for editing/completion.
SH94 – The Milford Road
(stunning scenery and a strong historic element with the Homer Tunnel and Davey Gunn farming cattle in the Hollyford)
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
Collingwood and beyond…
(A trip with Solly’s Nissans headed into the furthermost end of the road to Anitori)
One of the most scenic shoots we’ve ever done, this follows a pair of Sollys Nissan stock and tipper rigs heading into country few people know about let alone have travelled.
While we are on the subject of livestock – this trip across Lake Wanaka also has some great visuals.
SH8 – The Lindis Pass
Lots of footage of this route with Summerland, Road Metals and others forming the core of this story.
SH73 – Arthurs Pass and the haul over the hill
The Kaingaroa story...
Put simply – perhaps the biggest story of all to be told.
The original think-big project – born of the great depression – it pushed the limits over many generations of what trucks could were capable of doing with technology, engineering and capability limits constantly expanded to enable logging on an industrial scale!
We have footage culled from many sources, including lots of full-cycle circuits with a triple and stem trucks.
Generations have harvested billions of tonne of logs in this region and few people outside the industry know about it.
East Cape
Remote, challenging, with Pacific, Emmersons, Weatherall and others servicing this problematic route…
Taupo – Napier Highway
(Built for a reason, and important as they get – this road story has some great commentary from Sir Russell Petigrew)
Cook Strait – the importance of –
(We’ve forgotten how crippling it was to move freight across the Strait prior to the ferrys.)
Special interest
The tipper story
(No other item of technology has transformed New Zealand as has the hydraulic-ram, and one of its biggest users are the tipper combinations that engineering companies such as Transport Trailer developed. A look at the evolution and the importance of this technology.)
Curtainsiders
(Noted historian and former V8 Ford truck driver in the forties and fifties, Gavin Abbot, says that in his view, one of the most important development for the industry was the advent of curtainsiders. He should know, having tarp’d and roped tens of thousands of loads in his time.)
The brand that changed perceptions – Mack
(No other brand changed the trucking landscape as did Mack in this country. Now an icon, the ‘pup’ has a unique history…)
And so the list goes on…
Some of this content will be tailored for tv-viewing, much of it will be built to go into the Legacy Series of clips on this website.
Some of these projects will be highly engineered to broadcast standards – other might only be of a few minutes of interesting footage.
Producing content is an expensive exercise, and preview-viewing rights are granted for those who are willing to support this endeavour.
They will eventually filter down to the free-to-view Legacy menu, but those that support this project get gifted privileges – as a big thank-you.
If you want to help get this and more content made – we have made it easy to help fund this content.
You are not locked into anything – you can cancel your subscription at anytime but it would be great if you could support us for a year or two to give some consistency to our funding model.
Contact the editor to discuss your particular requirements should you wish to be a major contributor, partner with this site, or have your company logo on the header/banner.
Click the green button below to become to look as some of our funding options.
A couple of examples of what we have to work with...
The story of White in this country…is a long and rich one, ending with the legendary White Road Boss – being arguably one of the most admired trucks to work on our roads.
We’ve got a lot of material for this story, even a couple of interviews, but finding the funding and time (funding) to finish it requires your support.
Who knows – there could film and photographs of Whites in action sitting in some dusty corner, that could add value to this project.
If you have film or images of this brand or any other that has a historic context – Contact the editor here!
Other concepts...
Our workplace is the envy of much of the world.
We work amidst some amazing landscapes.
Work has started on stories of transport operators working in some of the places few people get to see.
Other stories will revolve around the great passes, the changing infrastructure and the most amazing road of them all – State Highway 1.
Most of these roads were laid down because trucks needed to access the country. As an industry, we paid for them, built them and maintain them. They are uniquely ours…
The land of many brands....
Due to a number of factors, the brands that make up New Zealand’s trucking fleet is both diverse, and large.
We got the best of North American, Scandinavian, European and British brands, as well as a sprinkling of other oddities over the years.
Many brands have disappeared, such as White, International, Leyland, Foden, GMC and a plethora of others.
It’s time to give them the recognition they deserve as the trucks that built this nation.
