10-4 Magazine October 2023

Truckapedia: By Mark Harter & Duncan Putman Every family has heirlooms and special items that have been passed down from generation to generation. Maybe it’s your grandfather’s watch, or your grandmother’s pearl necklace, or something else. Typically, these items have a memory or sentimental value attached to them. For me, I have an autographed baseball by Chicago Cubs great Ernie Banks from back in the early 1960s that has a story involving my father and my grandfather. But for Marc Jessup, a third generation trucker and owner of Mooresville, Indiana based Jessup Logistics, his heirloom is unlike most. While I have a baseball, Marc Jessup has his grandfather Dale Jessup’s 1955 Kenworth 523C Bullnose. For many trucking families, there’s always that special attachment to “the truck that started it all” or “the truck that a family member owned” etc. Many of these trucks have been lost to time and are only remembered in old photographs. But there are exceptions, and this old Kenworth here is one of them. Over the years, I’ve been able to speak with current generation owners who have their dad’s or grandfather’s trucks, but many of those “special trucks” have had to be tracked down and found and then restored later on. Most of the stories you hear when speaking with owners of vintage trucks that have been restored to pristine condition, the kind seen at truck shows nowadays, talk about “bringing back” a tired rig that may not have been operated for years before its restoration. But what makes the Jessup Bullnose unique and special is it has never been truly retired from service and kept in immaculate “ready to go” condition since Dale rebuilt the truck back in the late 1960s. In 1965 Dale Jessup was on a haul out west. Stopping in at the Kenworth dealership in the Denver area, he spotted a truck on their lot that really caught his attention. It wasn’t one of the new trucks on the lot, but an old truck parked out behind the dealership that caught his eye. Sitting on blocks with parts missing, the sight he saw was this 1955 Kenworth model 523C Bullnose. Inquiring with the dealership about the rig out back, that had been left for parts/scrap, Dale saw life in the once proud Kenworth. After making a deal, Dale purchased the truck for $2,500 and hauled the worn-out Bullnose home to his shop in Camby, Indiana, where the truck went through a complete rebuild and its first restoration, with its initial period-correct powerplant being a NH-220 Cummins. While Dale had intended to use the Kenworth on his 6,000 acre farm, the truck proved itself and quickly became the pride of the Camby, Indiana based Jessup Trucking fleet. On a hot, humid Saturday morning in May 2018, the day before the 102nd running of the Indy 500, Duncan Putman and I met up with Marc Jessup and his cousin Mike Kale, also a trucker, just south of Indianapolis, at the Jessup Logistics truck shop in Mooresville, Indiana, to do a photo shoot with the elusive Bullnose truck. Elusive? Well, for this author, yes, as the truck had been elusive to me most of my life. Growing up in the Central Indiana area, I can remember seeing the Jessup Bullnose rolling down the road, 28 10-4 Magazine / October 2023 A FAMILY HEIRLOOM