RICHMOND’S Sunny Warby reckons he is one of the only blokes in Australia who still owns a Mack truck, which he originally bought – and has now restored – more than 50 years ago in 1965.
“That truck cost me about 9000 quid,” he said. “I had been waiting for the thing for a while and it just came on her birthday.
“They didn't think I had any money in the shop, but I had worked my guts out to get the money for it.”
Last year, Mr Warby and some of his friends finished a three year restoration job on the truck, and in September took it to the Clarendon Classic. He said he was elated when the job was finally finished.
“It was the bees knees. I was like a kid in the lolly shop,” he said.
“I was thinking ‘look at what we have all done’. The people who helped me, I have the most wonderful respect and thoughts for the people who helped me and what we all achieved.”
Mr Warby said the restoration was very enjoyable, all the more so because he was helped by his friends.
“It took us a couple of years to fully restore it,” he said.
“There was a fair bit to it, getting parts and all that sort of thing. We had to pull it apart. We just tinkered away and did a bit as we go and did it that way. It was a labour of love.”
For a truck that is over 50-years-old, Mr Warby said it was in perfect condition.
“People are often surprised at the condition. It still goes good,” he said.
While Mr Warby now takes the truck to the odd show, including the Hawkesbury Show most recently, it used to take him across Australia.
“I've had some wonderful times with it, earned a living out of it,” he said.
“I've seen a lot of things. Watching the sun rise in the morning. Coming over the mountains. Going to Western Australia and getting on the train to go across the Nullarbor, looking out the carriage at the country side."
Mr Warby said he was still a truck driver, although now worked for people, rather than driving his own truck.
“I retired at one stage. I took about five weeks off and it didn't do my excitement any good so I started working again. I really enjoy what I am doing,” he said.
Mr Warby bought the truck as a 23-year-old and took up a life of truck driving.
He said he grew up on a dairy farm, and the move from dairy farmer to truck driver was a seamless one.
“Going from a dairy farmer to driving trucks was basically the same thing,” he said.
“Cows get sick in the middle of the night and need the vet, trucks get crook in the middle of the night so it is pretty much the same thing.”
Mr Warby said the highlight of the restoration was when he took his youngest daughter, Sarah, to her wedding at Kurrajong Heights in the truck recently.
