Every year, OwnerDriver starts off by crowning the prized Truck of the Year winner. In the past year, sponsored by Ryco, the competition remained as fierce as ever, with some stunning entrants being featured in our Truck of the Month section, profiled by Warren Aitken throughout 2024.
To start the year, just under 1,000 voters decided which truck would take home the winner of the prized mantle. The results are in, so let’s recap the top five and catch up with our latest victor.
Fifth place went to our May story of Matt Kane’s Western Star 4964FX Limited Edition Constellation. While Matt was previously a Mack man and had his heart set on a Cat-powered Super-Liner, he soon fell in love with the unique 2000 model Western Star, and so did the OwnerDriver audience.
In fourth was our August Truck of the Month story, which was another Kenworth. This time owned by Steve and Tracey Armstrong, this T909 is known as ‘F##kin Perfect’ after the Pink song – it’s also proven to be a hit with STA Trucking. This pink beauty received around 7.5 per cent of the votes.
Now to our top three, starting with an October special from the VE Group. Bronwyn and Nathan Howell’s latest Kenworth T909 Centenary special captured the hearts of readers, with the special 2023 release including a 100-year nod to Kenworth. It received just over eight per cent of votes.
In second was our April Truck of the Month, another Kenworth from Ian and Hayden Einsiedel. This 2023 W900SAR Legend is allowing the father-son duo to take their cattle-carting business to the next level in Sale, Victoria. It won 11 per cent of the votes.
The winner for 2024 was clear cut. By far and away the leader among voters – having received a whopping 41 per cent of votes – Suzy Snowden took home the prize for her Kenworth C509. As a driver for Toll Energy, Suzy has rich trucking history in her veins, with Warren’s story with Suzy proving to be a wonderful chat about her unique career to date as a trailblazer in the trucking industry.
“I was up in Karratha doing tippers when my current boss rang me. He’d heard my name from some people and rang to offer me a job,” Suzy told OwnerDriver.
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“They had a new contract and wanted me to drive for them. He showed me a pic of the 5-0 and said, ‘it’s yours’. I was blown away.”
Suzy pilots this very cool Kenworth 509 for Toll Energy every day, loading up on a Tuesday and taking whatever trailers are needed.
“Sometimes it’s a train and sometimes just a single. I run up to Leinster in the goldfields, I take them into the camp and unload and reload them, then I run them back out of the mine and the next truck that’s come up will take them home. I will then go and unload and reload their trailers. I’ll spend a week doing that then come home,” she says.
OwnerDriver caught up with Suzy in the aftermath of her win, which even she couldn’t believe.
“To be honest, I didn’t think I’d win it. I actually voted for the pink and black Kenworth truck,” she says.
“I thought it would win. I’m more than happy to have won it. I’m super stoked.
“From the beginning, as I was a young girl, growing up with my dad being in the truck, that was the biggest highlight of my transporting life.
“Then progressing to Australia, getting my licence and working from the bottom and making my way up, it’s been a whirlwind. The highlight is learning new things, getting to see the countryside and meeting a lot of great people along the way.”
Suzy will never forget when she first received the truck. She says she’d “never been given such a great truck before”, so seeing it in the flesh allowed her to plan how she could give the model “a life of its own”.
“I made it my own, it was a privilege to be able to do that,” she says.
“I won’t take full credit. My partner Logan has had a lot more experience in transport than I have. They were his ideas, I bounced off him, he suggested we should put certain things on, add some extras. It came out of our own money, but we budgeted for it.
“To be able to do that, he was more the master planner for it, I just chucked my five cents in every now and then, it was great fun.”
The win comes at a great time for Suzy, who is currently on light duties and hasn’t been on the road since early December after dislocating her shoulder while washing the truck. With the Truck of the Year award now in her back pocket, she’s raring to get back on the road.
“Moving forward, once I do get back on the road, I plan to keep doing linehaul and enjoying the job for what it is,” she says.
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