Owner-operator Mel Williams, well-known as the "Truckin' Unicorn" on social media, bought this 2003 Peterbilt 379 about a year and a half prior to last fall's Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, where she showed the truck.
She pulls dry van freight for 5F OTR, where she's leased. "The whole business model is to link drivers with better paying freight," Williams said of 5F. "The way it works is to help minimize deadhead miles and our downtime, so we’re constantly getting our next load the day before we actually deliver. With that being said, you set up your preferences so if there’s states or cities you don’t go to, you don’t have to see it. If there’s types of freight you don’t haul, you never have to see it."
Mel Williams, the Video and photos taken by Lawson Rudisill, edited by Andrew Guinn
Williams said when she bought the truck, "nobody really took care of him" prior to her ownership. It had been used to haul concrete powder chemicals that had eaten the clear coat off the paint job. However, her primary concern when she bought the truck was to make sure it was going to run down the road.
In her brief time of ownership, Williams has completely rebuilt the drivetrain, including a frame-out platinum rebuild of the 1999-model 6NZ Cat in December 2021.
Now that the drivetrain is good to go, she's shifted her focus to working on the exterior and eventually the interior of the truck. As of October, she had added a new visor and 7-inch straight stacks. Next on the docket for the rig is the paint job, which she said will be holographic white.
"I believe that anything worth having is worth working for," she said. "I could have bought a truck that was already done, already ready. There’s a sense of pride and a sense of accomplishment in doing all of those things yourself and getting it to the place where you want it to be. I have a vision for the truck, and every day I’m just working to be one step closer to creating that final vision."
