January Truck of the Month 2008
by Duncan Putman
Photos by Scott McKenzie

As we usher in a new year, we feature, for January’s Eye-Catching Truck Of The Month, something old. While many of the trucks we feature are brand-new, tricked and chromed out, highly powered, modern beauties, this truck is a bare-bones work-horse from Canada’s West Coast.

This very rare truck is a Pacific, made in Canada’s British Columbia. Pacific Truck and Trailer was a custom manufacturer started by three ex-Hayes employees in Vancouver, B.C. in 1947. Most of these heavy- duty vehicles were produced for the logging industry around Vancouver Island but a few were made for tough duty in South Africa and New Zealand. After manufacturing over 2,300 trucks, the last production vehicle was built in 1995, but the company still exists as a parts supplier.

This month’s feature is a model SRDD-D made in May of 1964. Owned by Scott McKenzie, from Central British Columbia, the tractor is powered by a Cummins NH250B which puts out 250 BHP at 2100 RPM. It originally had a Spicer 5 speed transmission which was upgraded to a Fuller 8 speed with 4 speed Spicer Auxiliary. The rear ends are 2 Spicer SRDs with 7.54:1 gear ratio with 56 inch rear end spacing on a 235 inch wheelbase.

This Pacific’s interior is austere- most of it is steel with a cardboard headliner and rear wall panels. The driver’s seat is a Bostrom suspension while the swamper’s seat is a toolbox. There is no radio or other communication equipment leaving few aural distractions to hearing the Cummins’ growl.

Scott’s tractor was originally a logging truck with a Pacific built trailer and accessories but now has an old Carter gravel box mounted on it. The original headache rack had a built in water tank that supplied water to the brakes on both the tractor and trailer. “Spud,” as Scott calls his truck was originally sold to a B.C. sawmill where it moved logs off-highway in the dense forests.

McKenzie plans on fully restoring Spud and hopes to use it for pulling some type of recreational vehicle.

Scott is single and works as a Civil Design Technician for a local engineering firm and has a small design company on the side. He’s into trains, as well, and along with locomotive restoration and maintenance at his local railway museum, is in training to be both a steam and diesel engineer. Other hobbies include fly fishing, model building, computer programming and some truck photography.