Graeme and Raelene Skou’s 1977 W924 Kenworth may have started out life with Auckland’s Frankham Leasing as a conventional 350, but a little over four decades and a myriad of paint jobs later, and it’s been transformed into an award-winning showstopper that turns heads and drops jaws.

“We bought it back in 2016 and we totally stripped it and rebuilt the whole thing,” says Graeme. And boy did he.

With an 889137 chassis number and an IM9326 registration, the yellow and gold W924’s history began with carting general materials around the country by Alexander Grain and headed south to Hamilton where it remained until the early 80s, in various states of ownership/contracting duties and livery that included gold, yellow and black.

It was then that Ken Adams (KS Adams) picked up the W924 and took it further south to Lower Hutt and where it remained for the subsequent 32-years, before current owner Graeme took a shine to it.

“We bought it in March 2016 off a guy in Wellington. He previously owned it before us for 32 years,” says Graeme.

Although, truth be told, it did have an additional home with Carterton’s Tranz Transport for a couple of months before the move north to Graeme’s Rangitikei Truck & Diesel business in Marton.

Graeme says that he was looking for a truck to do up as a project, with a sole purpose of showing it once done. Adding that he’d just always liked the look of the Kenworth, ‘it’s quite stylish for an old truck’ and this one had good bones.

“It was just a hobby sort of thing to do one up,” Graeme says. “We stripped it right back to the chassis, and we rebuilt it over the next four and a half years. It went back on the road in October 2020.”

However, this was no mere ‘back to original’ rebuild.

“I’ll just run through what we’ve done to it,” Graeme explains.

“We stripped it right down and we threw the old motor out which was a 350 Cummins and replaced it with a 620 Signature from a 2011 Freightliner. That was one alteration. The second one was the bonnet, we replaced it with one out of Mexico which is actually a foot longer, which is an American thing.”

Wait, there’s more.

“The front axle, we took all the springs out of that and converted it to an air suspension front axle. The steel in the steel frame cab had had it, so we managed to get an alloy cab out of America for it. As well as a 60-inch sleeper.”

Graeme says they replaced the chassis rails from the cab back and made it into a 260-inch wheelbase, ‘just to match up with the sleeper cabin and even up the proportion’, and they replaced the steel back suspension with an eight-bag air suspension. 

“And we took the 15-speed gearbox out of it and replaced it with an 18-speed,” he says.

According to Graeme, the motor, gearbox and radiator all come out of a couple of Freightliners. Actually, the motor and gearbox came out of a burnt-out Freightliner and the radiator came out of an ex-Regal Haulage Freightliner.

It wasn’t just the exterior that got upgraded, the cabin did too, with the upholstery for the cab and the sleeper all coming out of 2B’s in Seattle, so it’s all buttoned upholstery. 

“They do all Kenworth upholstery. They don’t actually do any private upholstery for anyone, anymore, this was the last job they’ve done. We were very lucky,” Graeme says proudly.  

All the parts, the cab, the sleeper and all the chrome work were sourced with the help of Brennan Chapman, in Matamata and according to Graeme, it was Brennan that had the idea of having a longer wheelbase, ‘so it would all look right’. Adding that the other person pretty instrumental was Geoff Duffy from TWL, he did all the braking and replaced all the piping.

Graeme’s own workshop [Rangitikei Truck and Diesel], and in particular Gwyn Bliss-Bennet and James Rooke did all the modifications, fitting the motor in it and adapting it all so it eventually went. In fact, this was no mean feat either, as they essentially doubled the K924’s horses.

“Roadrunner in Bulls, they cut out all the stainless steel for us, Willie Malcolm from Malcolm Cab Solutions in Rotorua, he did all the cab preparation, and Total Truck Spray in Palmerston North, they painted the cab, sleeper and chassis. It’s actually now in Ford colours, the same silver as my Ford Ranger,” Graeme jokes.

“Hugo and Peter from Autokraft, Palmerston North did all the wiring, I sold a lot of the old parts, such as the tanks to Mark Pickard from Maramarua and replaced them with new ones. We also bought quite a few parts from him too, such as the airbag suspension out of a 404 Kenworth.” 

Last, but by no means least, Tony Walton from Custom Art in Fielding did a fabulous job painting the picture of Clint Eastwood on the back of the sleeper cab, and that’s where the ‘unforgiven’ name was born – they’re big western fans.

Graeme says that he’s not sure about the torque of this revamped Kenworth, but according to the computer, it’s putting out 615 horsepower at the motor and it “goes like buggery”. 

“It started life with a Cummins 340 small cam, and they tell me it used to have an auto transmission when it first came out and it’s been converted to a 15-speed and then of course when I did it up, I converted it to an 18-speed.”

According to Graeme, one of the hurdles they came across when they took out what he calls a ‘manual’ 350 and put the ‘electronic’ signature in, was that all the gauges had to be changed.

“We ended up getting gauges out of a 404 Kenworth and we replaced all those but then I had to cut all the dash out to get that right because it used to have air windscreen wipers in it, and I put in electric wipers that take up a lot more room and I didn’t have room for the gauges. I had to work it all around to make everything fit.”

Obviously, none of the above was cheap, however, Graeme deems the project a ‘labour of love’ along with help from his wife Raelene.

“I’ve got a nice garage at home, and I was up to do a lot of stuff myself. That’s why it took so long, it was slow going as I’m not actually a mechanic.”

Graeme says that Nigel Randall certified it, adding that he had him involved from the start, so he was familiar with it at all.

“Getting it registered again afterwards was reasonably easy because we de-rated it to 13-tonnes, so we can’t really use it for work. It’s our hobby truck.”

He says that right now the truck is keeping the shed warm and they’ll bring it out for a truck run down south in October and hopefully come up to the Bombay Truck Show in January. They belong to the northern classic commercial truck club, and they’ve taken on truck runs and things like that. ‘That’s the main interest of it. It’s an absolute showstopper’. It’s won the Tui Truck show twice in a row, and they took it down to Wanaka and it won the classic track show down there as well.

“It does look quite cool really – a vast difference from where it began.”

But when asked if he would do it again, the answer was an emphatic no. 

“I love what we’ve done but it’s a nod from me. It’s one of these silly things you do in life and only realise afterwards what it took to do. People buy boats, aeroplanes, horses or play golf, I chose to do up a truck.”