10-4 Magazine September 2023

Clint’s Creations: By Clint Moore remember it being super cold and slick that day, and the truck had bald tires, which made it really difficult to drive. We wound up not being able to make it back to the dealership that night due to the terrible road conditions, and we had to stay the night in Osceola, IA in a little motel with only the clothes we had on. This turned out to be a long-standing joke with the old KC Pete crew. The truck was purple, which I was never a fan of, and it had a 70-inch “batman style” Able Body sleeper on it, which nobody liked. The dealership was upside-down on the truck and owed more than we could sell it for. And, due to the terrible economy at the time, we had no space in the dealership’s main parking lot, so we parked it in one of the lower lots. One weekend the breathers were stolen, which added another expense to an already losing deal. It sat for a long time. I explained to my boss and owner that I had some ideas for that truck, because it really had good bones. They just kept denying the fact that they would have to spend money to still lose money, but finally they decided to let me do what I wanted to it to try to salvage something from it and not lose too much – and I labeled the truck “Project One” for obvious reasons (although there was never a “Project Two” truck). Growing up around hot rod cars, I always thought it would be cool to take something and make it cooler. The truck is a 1993 Peterbilt 379 Extended Hood with a 3406 mechanical Cat. On my “to do” list for this truck was to remove the barn siding from the hood, fill all the holes, remove the goofy sleeper, install a 48-inch flat top with a Unibilt opening, change the headlights to single squares (which were later switched to double rounds), add a butterfly visor, and remove the horns from the roof. I also added seven cab lights, flipped the mirror brackets, and installed some old-style Vor tox breathers, painted white, and then repainted the truck white. I wanted to paint it an exotic color, but the dealership said, “No!” So, white it was. I also added a black vinyl stripe, which is still on the truck today. As the build proceeded, I began to adver tise the truck in the Truck Paper. The internet was just coming on the scene, so I updated the ads as we went, both online and in the printed paper version. Dale Bussey, a trucker from Texas, saw the ad in the paper version of the Truck Paper and gave me a call. The day he came to get it we were still working on it, so he had to hang This month’s creation was built for Dale Bussey (50) of Stephensville, TX. But it wasn’t built recently – it was built way back in 2000. This was the very first “custom” build I did at Kansas City Peterbilt, which is why it was called “Project One” – and, oddly enough, it fits into this month’s celebration of everything 1993 in honor of 10-4 Magazine’s 30th anniversary, because the truck is a 1993 Peterbilt! And, to make the story even better, Dale still runs this truck every day, and says he will never sell it. Fresh out of high school, I got a job at Shelby Elliot’s Used Trucks in Kansas City, KS. I worked there for nine years. Shelby occasionally bought used trucks and then fixed them up to resell them. During my time there, he let me pick the colors to paint the trucks a few times, which was cool. In June 1997 I began working at Kansas City Peterbilt as a salesman. At that time, they didn't do much custom work, we mostly just ordered new trucks. But that changed with “Project One” in 2000. This truck is special to me because it was the first lot truck they let me customize with my own ideas to help sell it. The 1993 Peterbilt 379 was sold at KC Peterbilt and then repossessed in February of 1999. Our dealership had recourse on the truck, which meant we were responsible if the buyer quit paying. The truck was abandoned at Bosselman’s Truck Stop in Des Moines, IA, so me and our finance lady, Sally, went to get it. I 28 10-4 Magazine / September 2023 PROJECT ONE