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This one was sent in from one of the members of our page, Kile Schilke, and he sent in a bunch of photos as well so you can all check out the process of customizing this 95 Peterbilt – a custom job he did himself.
His words:
“It was originally a red unibilt sleeper truck 1995 379 American class package that I restored myself with a friend has a Detroit 60 series and a 13 speed. I put on the under cab fairings daycab kit deck plate and full fenders then 8” exhaust and extended front fenders got some pics of the process
“All the paint and body work was done by myself paint to matched the grill stainless battery box/toolbox covers 20” front bumper and a whole bunch of purple lights.”
A Ford Compact Pickup?
“There’s no smoke without fire,” I’ve heard. I’ve been wondering about that in regards to a new rumor about a future vehicle from Ford. Where did the rumor start? Did someone at Ford decide to let it trickle down and work its way into the masses, or did someone sneak out information and try to get it to another company to use? Or, is it a completely baseless rumor started by someone online who wanted attention? While we may never know the origin of a specific rumor, it’s still fun to speculate and see what happens. After all, there’s a kernel of truth in every rumor, right?
What I’ve heard about Ford is that there might be a new vehicle on the market, one that will bridge the gap between compact cars and pickups with the concept of a compact pickup, possibly along the lines of a Courier. While the Courier never really had a U.S. market appeal, now might be the time to test it out, since Ford has committed to shutting down its four-door car lines in the very near future. While there are other companies that sell similar vehicles overseas, there has never been one to produce for the U.S., though Hyundai has decided to enter the race.
Can Ford produce a compact pickup that will appeal to its audience before Hyundai gets there? Or will Hyundai sell to its own market? What will the Ford compact pickup look like, and what will it have to offer that others might not? It remains to be seen, but there are people online speculating that Ford is heading toward a big shakeup in regards to models being retired and new ones being produced.
It may be time for a new era. Out with the old, and in with the new. Although at the moment it seems that the old has become the new, especially with models like the Ford Ranchero and Bronco coming back into play. At this point we seem to want to pull the past into the future with us, whether that’s wishful thinking for the way things were, or recognizing that even though we can’t go back, we can keep the good things with us no matter where in time we are.
I’ll be keeping a lookout for this new compact pickup, as I am rather too short to drive something like the Ford F-150, but need the hauling capabilities of a pickup for camping equipment, helping people move, or loading up instruments so my brother and I can play wedding gigs.
If you too are interested in what Ford has in store for future designs, you may want to check in on us every so often. We’ll be updating and writing new articles with the information we glean online, speculating about what’s in store for Ford and whether we’ll be seeing futuristic designs in the next few years or if we’ll be seeing reinventions of Ford’s most popular vehicles, or perhaps a little bit of both. We’ll keep you posted.
Semi Sleeper Cabs
The value of custom sleepers for semi trucks has a lot to do with money savings on trucker’s other accomodations. It costs a lot to get a big roomy semi sleeper fabricated onto a tractor unit, or even a big sleeper truck that’s not a big rig, but that means every night the driver is on the road, he or she doesn’t have to pay for a hotel or motel. It’s the truck sleeper cab life!
It’s also useful for RVers or people who drive commercial transport, even owner-operators, who don’t have a house of their own, or even a rental in some cases, because they can live out of their semi sleeper. Some of them are even up to luxury RV motorhome standards – semi trucks with showers and toilets, couches and entertainment systems, that allow their owners to use them for road trips for fun as well and camp out.
They also could be said to increase the types of jobs a driver or owner-operator can take on, because his required costs are lower without hotels, and he doesn’t have to schedule his trip or driving legs around stopovers.
The cost of a big sleeper trucks extra large unit is said to be around $200000, but that’s for a new luxury large sleeper unit with all the trimmings. Some of the best ones are being made by ARI trucks. You can obviously get them cheaper, and a used tractor that has a sleeper on it is usually cheaper than that price. This can be measured against the cost of a cheap apartment or house, which starts at $40,000 or so for the very cheapest, and goes up from there.
