Trevor gets Mack back... in art form
IT BEGAN SEVEN YEARS AGO AS A HUNT FOR A 1984 MACK R Model that New Zealand Truck & Driver publisher Trevor Woolston used to own. The search, inspired by a sentimental urge to buy the old 350-horsepower R600 Mack – nicknamed the Torquing Bulldog – and restore it, ended in disappointment.
As far as he was able to determine, it seemed that his much-loved Mack was probably scrapped 10 to 15 years ago.
But now, remarkably, he has his Mack back – not in cold, hard metal terms….but in a dramatic work of art.
The delighted Woolston has been presented with a painting of the old tipper, resplendent in its Dibble Independent colours, created by Kiwi truck artist Paul Astwood.
The Woolston family commissioned the art work for Trevor’s 65th birthday – tracking down Astwood in Australia to recreate in paint a photo taken 36 years ago by well-known truck photographer and historian Ed Mansell.
Fittingly, Woolston published a story about Astwood’s truck artwork in 1988 – “when he was a young painter who was making a name for himself around New Zealand with his great artistry – painting many NZ trucks of that time.
“His paintings were adorning the walls of many fleet offices, depots, cafes and truck stops around NZ.”
Astwood had started painting trucks as a teenager in 1982 – when he was still in high school.
Recalls Woolston: “One of his favourites at the time of the article was a 50-metre-long mural done for Nelson quarryman and contractor the late Rex Krammer. Paul crammed 20 machines and vehicles based around Rex’s interests in farm machinery, trucks, vintage gear and aircraft.”
The Nelson-born Astwood moved to Taupo, simply to feed his passion for painting trucks: “He’d taken a job at Stag Park, where many of his paintings adorned the walls and he was in regular contact with truckies.
“He was living in a small room at the De Bretts Hotel next door, where one of his giant paintings – of the DB Clydesdales, painted on velvet – was hanging in pride of place.
“At that time Paul was doing his truck paintings and truck signwriting on a part-time basis, while holding down a fulltime job. Demand was so great for his work he could have done it as a fulltime
job but preferred not to.”
Trevor and Paul’s paths have now crossed again, thanks to Woolston’s son Hayden finding the ’88 story about Paul’s artistic talent in an old magazine. Through Facebook, he found Paul living in Sydney, “but still very much in touch with the NZ truck scene and regularly doing paintings for Kiwi truckies as well as Australians,” says Trevor.
“Paul was more than helpful and in fact was enthusiastic to do the painting for my family.”
An appreciative Trevor says the painting of his Mack is “an amazing work – with so much detail and realism that at first glance you could mistake it for a photo.
“It is by far one of the best truck paintings I have ever seen.” Woolston says that Astwood “balanced painting Torquing Bulldog in between doing a major signwriting job at a hotel in Port Macquarie – completing painting it in time so that it arrived in NZ just two days before my birthday.”
It was accompanied by a book featuring “some of his other amazing paintings from over the years.
“Many well-known Kiwi trucks appear in the book, such as both of the late Storm Hema’s trucks, several TD Haulage trucks, Lamberts, PanPac and KLC (Kaingaroa Logging Company) trucks, the L&P Kenworth, the Concord V12 Kenworth of the late Alf Quaife, and many more.
“It really shows the progression of his skill over the years. He is without doubt one of the best realist truck painters I have seen.”
Astwood’s truck art has featured in Australian truck magazines and he now splits his work time between signwriting trucks, hotels and cafes and the like and creating truck art.
Says Woolston: “He regularly travels all over Australia to service his many clients, regularly staying for long periods of time to complete numerous commissions for hotels – everything from menu boards to large exterior murals.
“His work on trucks ranges from signwriting, scrollwork and small murals, through to large murals on sleeper cabs and complete colour
scheme designs such as the one he did for the late Storm Hema for his Mack SuperLiner.
“One unusual job he did was to paint fuel tanks to look like beer cans – complete with ring pulls on the ends.”
Astwood also loves painting trains, planes, ships and cars, some of which have also seen his artistic talents featured in a variety of other magazines.
Owing to his busy working and travelling schedule any other Kiwi truckers wanting to commission a painting should contact him via Facebook, Woolston advises.
It has been, he says appreciatively, “great to catch up once again with such a talented Kiwi.”
The R600 Mack was Woolston’s last truck: He sold it about a year after starting NZTrucking magazine in 1985.
He’d driven it fulltime for about a year – having bought it to replace a troublesome previous R Model.
He and the truck survived a rollover in late ‘84, when a Kawhia farm road up to an airstrip gave way under the Mack: “It went over the bank – rolled two and a half times.
“We had to put a new body on it, did the cab up, straightened the chassis and it went back on the road again.”
Woolston did find that it was at one stage a logger for L.F. Cox and was later owned by Bowman Contracting in Morrinsville.
It was then owned, he believes, by a property developer in Karaka. Its registration lapsed around 2006.
“Apparently it was wrecked. The motor and gearbox were probably pulled out and sent to the Middle East, we were told.”
Woolston reckons that having the Torquing Bulldog back with him in the form of a painting rather than the real thing is probably for the best: The idea of finding it and restoring it was, he says now, “probably a moment of madness. If I listen to all my mates who have restored trucks, it could have cost me a fortune!” T&D