Classic Peterbilt

Famed automotive photographer Henry Rasmussen has trained his camera on beautifully restored Peterbilts, fancy show trucks, and big rigs at work. The legend of Peterbilt is featured in a photographic essay of more than 80 color images and a gallery of nostalgic black-and-white photographs, showing early Fageol trucks, one of the oldest surviving original Peterbilts of 1939, and a host of other trucks built through 1988. Included is a list of production figures and model designations for all Peterbilts 1939-1988.

Frustrated with the pace of getting logs to mills by river, steam tractor, or even horse team, lumber baron T. A. Peterman experimented with adapting early automobile technology. In 1939, the remarkable logging trucks he'd refashioned out of surplus army trucks finally went on sale to the public and Peterbilt was launched. This illustrated history follows Peterbilt from its beginnings to its emergence as one of the world's most successful semi truck manufacturers. Veteran trucking author James Beach highlights the models that have made Peterbilt such an outsize presence in the trucking industry, as well as those trucks that figure prominently in the Peterbilt story. From the classic ?iron nose? and ?narrow-nose? butterfly hood, to the tilt-cab cab-over-engine model; from the high cab model and first tilt hood to fiberglass and flat ?pit style? fenders; from the rarest Peterbilt ever manufactured (a mere 10 of the 346) to the company's flagship truck (the 379, built from 1987 through 2007), these are the trucks and features, the innovations and marvels of engineering, detailed and richly illustrated in this book, that have made Peterbilt a name to be reckoned with in trucking worldwide.