Mack - classic shots
Southland and Central Otago hosted some of the biggest fleets of Mack in the country – it was Mack rich for good reason – these trucks proved very reliable and for a region that was at the end of the parts supply chain – this was gold.
Of those Mack heavy fleets, Tuapeka Transport of Lawrence was perhaps the most famous.
Their Super Liner wood-chip-liner was arguably the most impressive on the road and this night study underlines what an impressive rig this was.
There are more pix and video of some of Tuapeka’s rigs at work and you can see one of their R-series at work in the eighties here.
The Tuapeka colours have been keep, but the name now resides with Road Transport Logistics who predominately run Kenworth. You can see them at work here.
Shot in the mid 1980’s, this FR700 Mack “True Blue’ contracted to Mainfreight and spent much of its time under a Steelbro Sidelifter.
The Sidelifter was a revolutionary piece of kit back in the eighties and Steelbro enjoyed significant overseas sales and was one of New Zealand’s export success stories.
Mainfreight has gone on to become one of New Zealand’s most successful companies, and co-founder Neil Graham was particularly proud of the fleet he helped establish in the South Island – with ‘True Blue’ being their ‘King’ rig back in the day.
Perhaps the most iconic truck of them all, or at least in the top-three greatest models of all time – the R-Series Mack transformed expectations of what could be expected of a truck, when it was introduced in the seventies.
It ushered an era of reliability and capability that other brands strove to emulate.
‘Southern Pride’ is a fine example of the type of combination that evolved after de-regulation.
The Christchurch-based tractor worked for the then-fledgling Mainfreight – which was Mack heavy in its early years, the brand being a favourite of many of Mainfreight’s owner-operators back in the day.
Unusual even in its day when this was photographed in the late eighties/early nineties, this R-series Mack was set up as a dedicated lime and superphosphate spreader, and pulled a three-axle dedicated bulk trailer.
Don Carson operated in Balfour which has some of Southland’s finest plains country spreading out from every point of the compass, and this truck and it’s application resonates with the GMC 6×6 ex-military trucks that were put to work in this application for decades after the war.
It might not have been 6×6 but it certainly would have been a lot quieter and more comfortable…
Southland and Central Otago hosted some of the biggest fleets of Mack in the country – it was Mack rich for good reason – these trucks proved very reliable and for a region that was at the end of the parts supply chain – and this was gold to an operator.
‘Straight Torque’ was just one of many of the hard working and beautifully presented Macks that Tuapeka operated, which included three of this model when the fleet photo below was taken. Note the super-singles on the trailer.
Tuapeka Transport was perhaps one of most handsome Mack dominated fleets in the country, and the country they worked was daunting to say the least, and Mack proved itself during this era to have no rivals.
We have more pix and video of some of these rigs at work and you can view video footage here of one of their R-series Macks hard at work.
The Tuapeka colours have been kept, but the name now resides with Road Transport Logistics (RTL) who predominately run Kenworth. You can see them at work here.
Another handsome study of the iconic R-series Mack, this one working under Transpac colours – freshly painted by the looks of it as the red and white livery is there, but not the wording.
Sitting under an early Steelbro Sidelifter container handler, the combination was a coming together of three technologies that transformed road transport – firstly the container had reached wide acceptance around the world, Steelbro had built the worlds best and they would say first trailer built to self-load and unload and the R-series Mack which was a truck capable of 1,000,000km of use before major work.
In this day, it’s a minimum requirement – in the eighties it was a technological revolution.
The purple Macks that worked for Alexandra Transport/Fulton Hogan Central were a much admired feature of the region spanning decades of service, and encompassing just about every model that was commercially available from the 70’s until the 2000s.
What follows are is a selection of various models and configurations that appeared in the fleet over the eighties and nineties.
Some of these trucks or tractors appear in a variety of setups as being a primarily rural operation in those days, a truck had to be versatile, and a driver might be asked to haul a wide variety of cargo which required differing trailers, crates or sides.
The bulk units primarily had drop-sides on both units which allows the truck to cart bulk and then maybe wool or hay, and possibly put on a livestock crate when needed – sometimes all in one day! Rural transport operators had to be versatile and many of us will remember wrestling with those ungainly sides during the course of a day.
R-series Macks established the brand in this country, and they appeared in a wide variety of livery’s and configurations.
This tractor working for Irvines as first glance looks sharp although there is a lot of steel under the container, however the timelapse shot shows that the steel is there for a reason – in order to tilt and empty containers.
If anyone can add more info about this combination contact me here.
