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Kenworth’s Legend 950 turns backtime at Martins Stock Haulage. Back to the future in style …

iLegendary ...In their day, Kenworth’s formidable T950

was the go to truck at Martins Stock Haulage. Millions of kilometres of reliable service meant that Gordon Martin and his team had come to trust the big Kenworth.

But, as tough as this truck was, it wasn’t immune to the forces of change.

The introduction of ADR80/02 emissions standards in 2007 was the beginning of the end for the T950. The new engines required to meet the latest ADR needed serious cool-ing capacity and the T950’s long sloping bon-net restricted the engineering options.

Kenworth’s T950 had conquered some of the toughest trucking jobs in the country, but this was one battle with the elements it couldn’t win. The manufacturer had antici-

of mind when he started the conversation at Kenworth to build a limited edition truck.

For Brad, Gordon Martin was also behind a passing comment from Cummins Director – Automotive Business, Mike Fowler that became part of the Legend’s inspiration.

“Mike was presenting Cummins’ new e5 engines a few years back and at the end of the meeting he made a casual remark, claim-ing the e5 was so cool we could bring back the T950.

“Mike did his time on the tools at Cummins Newcastle, where he would have been famil-iar with Martins’ T950s. I guess he was prob-ably channelling some of that experience.

“So in a way, when we started to talk about bringing the T950 back for a limited run, Gordon Martin was a major influence on that decision.”

For most other manufacturers, dragging a near decade old truck model back from the brink of extinction would be wildly impractical. For a start, even if they could

do it, they’d have to find customers who’d be interested enough to put their money down.

Kenworth are different. Their trucks attract the kind of fierce loyalty from owners and drivers that others can only dream of.

The Kenworth plant at Bayswater, Vic had all the original T950 tooling available to supply PACCAR Parts, so putting the truck back into production wasn’t going to be too difficult. Although, the Legend 950 develop-ment team had more ambitious plans for the limited edition Kenworth.

“Okay we could put the T950 back into production, but what kind of T950 was the question,” Brad said of the decision process at Kenworth. “In the end we all agreed we’d build a unique, custom truck.

“Not just any custom truck. You can get a bunch of off-the-shelf polished stainless accessories anywhere, we wanted the Legend 950 to be a truely unique custom Kenworth, one that could only be built by the factory.”

The Legend 950’s stylish retro look and feel was exactly the impact Kenworth want-ed; an emotional appeal to the many suc-cessful Kenworth operators who have been with the company since it opened its factory doors back in 1971.

pated the change and a replacement model – the venerable T904 – was already available. Final orders were being taken and the count-down to the T950’s retirement had begun.

Old Kenworths just don’t die and fade away without a fight. Gordon Martin went into bat for the truck that was the backbone of his east coast livestock operation.

“Gordon came down to personally request we keep the T950 in production,” Kenworth General Sales Manager, Brad May said. “We would’ve loved to keep building the truck but it just wasn’t practical.

“As it is, Martins switched to the T904 and have been very happy.”

But Gordon wasn’t the only operator to plead their case for the T950 and the obvious affinity these operators had for the model has always been apparent and so was front

story n mark gibson

photos n voss photography

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So, with that in mind, the Legend 950 design program kicked off at the beginning of 2015. The first styling choice – the deci-sion to use Kenworth’s original 1971 bug – set the standard.

“We started by looking at a lot of older Kenworths, and that got me thinking about Dad’s old W-Model. It had that original badg-ing so I thought why not? The factory still had the drawings. All we needed to do was use of capabilities to remanufacture them.”

To complete the exterior’s retro badg-ing, Cummins were approached to see if they could source the engine manufacturer’s iconic old-style hood badge.

“Cummins understood instantly what we were trying to achieve and were right behind the idea, even offering to supply the e5 in beige to complement the truck’s retro style.”

Attention to exterior details also included the old school bullet lights on the roof, the alloy steps and the polished exhaust elbows.

The retro treatment follows through to the interior, with Eaton raiding its parts bin to redesign a new version of its 40-year-old Fuller gear knob.

The seats and the trim were also embossed with the old-style bug complemented by the Legend 950 logo. Just in case you forgot that you were driving one of the most unique Kenworths on the highway, VDO developed

“Which was terrific to hear because that’s exactly what we set out to achieve. We want-ed an emotional reaction to the Legend.”

Director of Operations at The Martin Group, Jason Martin wanted the Legend 950 to have an emotional impact as well. In this instance the person he was thinking of was his father, Gordon.

Jason was attending a 2015 product brief-ing by Gilbert and Roach Newcastle, which was attended by Kenworth engineering and sales staff, including Brad May. When talk turned to the rumoured limited edition truck Kenworth were planning to build in the last quarter of the year Jason was immediately interested.

The decision to go ahead with the Legend 950 was still to be confirmed, but at the time of the meeting stories of the Legend 950 were starting to emerge.

“Gordon was coming up for his 300th Kenworth,” Brad recalled. “Only a handful of companies have hit that mark, and Martins is the only private company to achieve that so it’s an impressive milestone for both Kenworth and Martins.

“We would’ve done something special any-way, but to commemorate Gordon’s 300th with the first Legend 950 to come off the production line was perfect timing.

Following the product briefing, G&R Newcastle’s Troy Ridley, Jason Martin and Brad got together to flesh out the plans for Gordon’s 300th.

“If Kenworth were going to go ahead with the Legend T950, then Jason and I agreed that the first one should go to Gordon,” Troy Ridley added. “And it should be Gordon’s 300th Kenworth.

unique chrome bezelled gauges incorporat-ing the old-style bug design into the Legend 950’s classic flat dash.

The bug treatment continued through to the retro style 16-inch steering wheel, and if that doesn’t stir memories among the old-school Kenworth operators they’d better be checking their pulse.

A prototype Legend 950 was put together to gauge any likely production problems and was used to preview the design.

“We had one customer who just stood there staring at the truck. His family had been with Kenworth virtually from the start. I thought he was going to cry … he later told me it reminded him of his Kenworth experi-ence over the years.

Attention to exterior details also included the old school bulletlights on the roof, the alloy steps and the polished exhaust elbows...

Left: Gordon Martin wasdelighted with the surprisepresentation of his Legend 950

Above & left: Kenworth wantedthe Legend to show powerful design elements celebrating the companyand its customer’s 44 year journey

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and respected transport group specialising in livestock and bulk haulage.

You don’t necessarily need a forceful personality to do that, but it helps. That and good old fashioned hard work built Gordon’s company. So when his son had to tell him he didn’t really want a Legend 950, and that the company had moved on from that truck, the conversation didn’t really go down that well.

“How Jason kept it a secret I don’t know … just about everyone knew except Gordon and I think he was genuinely surprised when he was at the factory to pick up his 300th Kenworth and out rolls the first Legend with his name on it.”

If Brad had wanted the Legend 950 to extract an emotional response then he got the right reaction at the Martin 300th Kenworth handover in early November.

It was a proud moment for the Martin fam-ily, for the factory staff who build the trucks and for the Kenworth executive team who took the concept of a limited edition T950 and created a Legend.

So, what does Kenworth do now for an encore?

“The idea was to keep Gordon’s Legend 950 hush-hush and surprise him at the 300th Kenworth hand over. The order for the first Legend 950 was signed and sealed old style – written down on the back of a beer coaster.”

“That’s true.” Brad laughed when remind-ed of the meeting. “Symbolic really … of the whole Legend 950 project.”

As the retro look of the Legend took shape the discussion within Kenworth turned to just how many does a limited edition actually entail? The number came in at somewhere between not too many and not enough, which turned out to be 75 trucks.

“There was an amazing amount of excite-ment among our customers when it went on sale,” Brad explained. “It also went crazy on social media and created a lot of interest around the brand.”

With the formal announcement of the Legend 950 it was always only going to be a matter of time before Gordon Martin got wind of the latest Kenworth. When he did he wanted Jason to put in his order.

Gordon started out in 1958 driving a tip-per as a subcontractor to the local council. From that one truck he has built a diverse

Retro-style – Liberaluse of the old KW bug

lets you know that this Kenworth is different