10-4 Magazine August 2023

10-4 Magazine / August 2023 77 1958 Healzer was sold to Arkansas Best Freight (ABF) who preferred to operate company owned trucks, thus pushing out leased operators like Bill once their contracts ended. Worried about having 11 trucks sitting idle after his contract ended, Bill moved his trucks to other carriers that were operating between Chicago and Kansas City. One of these operators was Hannibal Quincy Truck Lines of Hannibal, MO. After leasing three trucks on to the carrier, Bill began acquiring stock in the company, and by 1961 he had 51% ownership of H&Q. In 1966 he purchased the remaining 49% of the company. As the Gully fleet grew, Bill began his decades long relationship with Freightliner Trucks in 1964. Purchasing 14 new White-Freightliner Trucks, these cabovers were leased to Chicago Kansas City Freight Lines and operated between Kansas City, Chicago, Springfield, Bloomington, Rockford, and Lincoln. Throughout the late 60s and early 70s, Gully acquired other regional trucking companies, increasing their footprint, and allowing the company to grow. In 1974, Gully adopted its current blue and white livery, and a year later (in 1975) the company became debt free, allowing Gully to be able to purchase new equipment without any financing. After becoming a loyal customer of Freightliner and having established itself as a Freightliner fleet since 1964, Freightliner Trucks awarded Bill Gully a dealership franchise in 1986, which became known as Quincy Freightliner, until selling it off to Kansas City based Midway Truck Sales in 2009. Born in 1957, Michael followed his father around as a little boy, and fell in love with trucks and the business. He began working in the shop and learning the ropes at an early age, and by the time he was 16 he had begun working in the office, dispatching trucks and drivers. After graduating high school, Michael went to college for a year, but came back to the family business that he loves, and has helped grow over the years, and he still runs it to this very day. A wealth of knowledge when it comes to Freightliner trucks, if you ask Michael what his favorite Freightliner is, he will tell you straight up that the best truck Freightliner ever built was the FLD 120. Even though the majority of his fleet now consists of modern Cascadias and Coronados, you will still find plenty of reliable FLD 120s operating in the Gully fleet. Michael has even gone as far as establishing a rebuild program at his shop to keep his fleet of Freightliner FLD 120s operating for years to come. Today, the 200+ trucks in the Gully fleet include 70% Freightliner, 15% Peterbilt, and 15% Kenworth, so the company is still a loyal Freightliner customer. Michael lives and breathes trucks, and he loves history, and his collection of vintage trucks, mostly consisting of Freightliners, is second to none. One of the coolest and rarest trucks in his collection is a 1949 Freightliner model 880, known as a bubblenose by trucking fans, and nicknamed “Big Bertha” by Michael’s wife Ginny. This truck is a former Consolidated Freightways truck and was the 251st Freightliner ever built. But while that model 880 is unique, Michael also still owns a few of his dad’s trucks that include a 1964 Freightliner WFT cabover and a 1956 Hendrickson conventional. All together, Michael’s collection contains over 39 vintage rigs in various conditions (look for features on some of these rigs in future editions of 10-4 Magazine). Michael believes the current size of Gully Transportation is ideal, telling me, “We’re a big fish on a local level. On a national scale, where a company might have 15,000 trucks, we would be a small fish,” continuing with, “Our size is advantageous over being bigger because we can be more in tune with the customer and do a better job managing our customer’s loads.” From office staff to the truck drivers, Michael and Ginny know their team members and have an open door policy should they need to talk to either of them. And when it comes to their drivers, the turnover rate at Gully Transportation is much lower than the national average – about 70 percent of their drivers have been with the company five years or more, with many drivers having worked there for decades. Sadly, Bill Gully died on May 13, 2019, at the age of 91, and then his wife Barbara of 63 years passed away five weeks later on June 20, 2019, at 83. Barbara was the company matriarch, and they are both remembered for their contributions to the trucking industry and the company they built. I’d like to thank Michael for sharing his story, the story of his father, the history of his company, and his love for Freightliner trucks with us. You are a Freightliner family like no other, and we love you for that. n Michael & Bill Barbara & Bill