Cover Feature: By Daniel J. Linss The first truck Mike bought was the 1989 International Eagle seen on the cover and center this month, along with on these pages, but it looked nothing like it does today. Back then, it was faded white, bone stock, was fitted with a sleeper, had a rusty frame and about 600,000 miles on the odometer. Hiring a retired truck driver named Sherwood Parker to drive the truck, Mike put it to work hauling automotive parts from various points in the United States to a Chrysler assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Over the next few years, Mike’s company, Mike Duffy’s Trucking, grew to include five or six trucks, and he eventually got his CDL, mostly so he could be a backup driver. Hauling for U.S. This month’s cover should take a lot of people back over 25 years – back to the late 1990s and early 2000s – when Mike Duffy of Canada was winning many of the big shows with his head-turning 1989 International 9300 Eagle. Fast forward to now, and after a series of uncanny coincidences and several involved players, Mike’s old show truck appears on our cover in all its glory, almost identical to what it looked like when he was showing it, before he sold it off to a guy and said farewell, so many years ago. But after lots of digging and investigating over a period of three years, the puzzle was finally put together and Mike’s truck – which was the ultimate barn find for one gentleman – is now in the care and custody of a man in Salt Lake City that truly loves and respects this vehicle and it’s history. This story starts out with Mike Duffy (70), who was born in 1955 and raised in the Windsor, Ontario area of Canada, just across the river from Detroit, MI. Mike’s family was not involved in trucking, as his dad was a cop, and his mom was a secretary. Being a bit of a hustler and a gangster right from the start, Mike and his father did not get along, so Mike left home at just 15 years old and began an apprenticeship program at a local auto body shop, learning the art of paint and body. The guy who owned the shop actually came to Mike’s school to recruit him, and when he told the school officials about the apprenticeship program, they “released” him from school – he was only in the 10th grade! After several years in the industry and getting really good at paint and body work, Mike opened his own shop in 1980 called Duffy’s Collision in nearby LaSalle, Ontario, Canada. A few years later, Mike was offered a management job to run the paint and body shop at a local GMC dealership and took it. A few years after that, he got burnt out and quit, moving to Belle River, Ontario, Canada, just east of LaSalle, where he built a shop and started doing his own jobs again. In those days, he got together regularly with a group of friends for breakfast, and many of those friends were truckers. After sharing how much money they were making, Mike decided it might be a good idea to buy a truck and put a driver in it, which is exactly what he did. 10 10-4 Magazine / September 2025 THE ULTIMATE BARN FIND
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