Images and Interests

It was a really pleasant surprise when we were in Joplin last fall to run into Jay Holsomback at the Guilty by Association Truck Show. We have known Jay for many years, since we used to show our truck with his dad Neal in the mid 90’s. Neal and Barbara have a beautiful flattop Peterbilt and were very active on the show circuit at the same time we were.

Jay has always preferred Kenworths for himself, even though his dad is a diehard Peterbilt man. This has created many ‘conversations’ in the family, but Jay stuck to his guns when it came time to build his own ‘dream truck’.

In December of 2004 this particular truck was about as far from a dream as you could get! It was, however, solid. A 1996 W900L, 272” wheelbase, equipped with a 550hp 3406E model Caterpillar backed up by an 18 speed with 3.55’s. The engine had recently been rebuilt and still had 100,000 miles left on its warranty, but the ‘burgundy’ paint was faded and not very attractive.

Jay put the truck to work right away (after getting it home, buffing it out and discovering the color was much more raspberry than burgundy!) and drove it, as is, for several years. All the while he was building his dream team truck in his head, picking up parts along the way.

The suspension on his truck wore out, so after much research and looking around, his friend, Ronnie King located one in Florida and Jay purchased the entire rear portion of a new, 2005, burned up truck. This suspension included the newer ‘Flex-air’ air ride he’d been looking for as well as the rear ends and new, hub-piloted wheels, not to mention the 305” frame he’d also been looking for. So, he had the shop swap out the entire section, for section, and gained 33” in the process. Thus started the ‘dream’.

Jay had long since decided he wanted an Aerocab flattop, he had a picture in his head of his perfect truck and had been searching the country for it for years. Since he is tall, an Aerocab flattop would allow him to stand up and get dressed since the floor drops down in the back. It’s really the only flattop that allows for that. He had been unable to find what he was looking for in an existing truck, no matter where or how hard he looked. He had even looked into a glider and was considering it, until he found out how expensive it would be! He had searched for a used sleeper but that option wasn’t working out for him either, and he had all but given up on the idea of the flattop.

His wife Shelley was getting tired of the pile of parts sitting around that Jay had been gathering for the past 8 years and told him it was time to put his money where his mouth was! It was time to either build the dream truck or get rid of the parts, so they decided to put it together. There was a wrecked truck in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee some friends had been telling Jay about that had a perfect set of daylight doors on it, which he wanted, but it also had the sleeper he had been looking for. He went up there to get the doors and the man at the shop knew he had been looking for this particular sleeper, so he made him an offer Jay just couldn’t refuse! The sleeper was missing a couple of parts, but funny thing, Jay had everything he needed back at home in the pile of parts he’d been accumulating over the years!

When it was time, Jay took these parts to Kenworth in Chattanooga where they removed his sleeper and doors and replaced them with the ones he had purchased. The day he went there to pick it up and drive it to the paint shop, Jay was so excited, he was grinning from ear to ear watching it back out of the shop, he was so proud! Another guy was standing next to him and said “Boy! That is the ugliest truck I’ve ever seen!” Jay turned to him and said, “Buddy, I can see the vision, you come back in a couple months and we’ll see how ugly it is then!”

You see, Jay had been working with Jim Higgins at 12 Gauge Customs to design a custom paint scheme for this showstopper of his. After they had agreed on all the details of the design, he took it to Matthews Paint and Body Shop in Cartersville, Ga. where Rodney Garrison did the actual painting. His friend Brent Mitchell helped out a lot with some of the stainless on his truck, he lives close by and operates a small shop ‘Full Pull Customs’ in Tunnel Hill, Ga.

I LOVE this truck! Y’all know I am a KW girl at heart, heck, I LOVE trucks period, but this one stands especially tall in my mind because of the story behind it! It is a true labor of love that literally took YEARS to build! The patience it required to gather and assemble all of these miscellaneous parts into something so beautiful deserves recognition. Jay relied pretty heavily on our mutual friend and Kenworth enthusiast Victor Verret throughout the entire process since Victor has a gorgeous Kenworth of his own and great taste and ideas when it comes to them. He was always there for Jay to run ideas past whenever he wanted to put something new on his truck; he was his peace of mind.

‘Til next month, y’all stay safe out there, and God Bless!