Michael Scherkenbach, owner of the entertainment-hauling Shomotion fleet, bought this 2011 Peterbilt 389 as a glider for his fleet.
After about 500,000 miles on the road, as he does with all of his fleet trucks, he pulled it off the road in favor of a new rig. Unlike most of his other trucks, though, he kept this one for himself, taking off the original sleeper and replacing it with a 36-inch coffin.
He kept the original wheelbase, but swapped out the tanks to give the truck a more uniform look. Its old-school look turned plenty heads in Overdrive's 2022 Pride & Polish virtual truck show competition, where it netted a victory in the Working Combo, 2011 & Older category. The rig is still powered by its original remanned 2000-built Cummins ISX, the first year of the ISX after the early Signature 600 engines.
Scherkenbach’s plan had been to keep the truck around the Shomotion shop for himself to drive “when I do a couple trips a year,” he said.
Yet in early 2022, one of the few owner-operators leased to Shomotion (most of Scherkenbach’s drivers are employees), Harold "Bud" Smith, decided to sell his truck while it could fetch a pretty penny and retire.
“I agreed with him. Because the market was so hot on resale value, it was a good time to sell,” Scherkenbach said. But it sold more quickly than either of them anticipated. “After that, I saw the year I had ahead of me and didn’t want to lose his talent, so I basically said my offer was for him to drive” the 2011. And because of the smaller sleeper, he also offered to put Smith in a hotel room every night he was on the road.
Smith didn't bat an eye at that. “He said he’s fine sleeping in it, and he’s yet to take me up on getting a hotel,” Scherkenbach said.
