Peterbilt: The Class of the Industry

Peterbilt bears a pedigree as long as the roads the trucks travel. The legend traces back to the 1915 Fageol truck line with the first hauler to wear the Peterbilt badge rolling onto the scene in 1939. Classic Peterbilt chronicles the men and machines behind the legend, the evolution of the badge, and the advances in the aerodynamics of these mammoth machines.

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.