Strange as this may be, I would like to start this write-up on one of the coolest Kenworths gracing our motorways by issuing an apology. If you happen to own a stunning cream and turquoise blue retro Volkswagen Kombi van, and in early 2022 were cruising down Military Road in Neutral Bay, NSW being stalked by a young couple driving a Grey Tiguan, can I please have your attention for a minute. I understand how strange it may have been to have a guy flashing his lights and yelling about paint codes while his wife was snapping photos from the passenger seat. I fully understand why you chose to drive like a Melbourne Cup contender – blinkers on, staring straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with the strange people trying to get your attention. Personally, I would have been driving straight to the nearest police station myself, but I am here to apologise and offer up the following photos and story as a bit of an explanation for that crazed behaviour.
As it happens, the young family that were stalking you that day was the Schaeffers and they had just ordered their very first brand new truck. Months and months of research and development had gone into designing this specific set-up and the only thing that still hadn’t been confirmed was the colour combination. Then you happened to pass by them in an immaculate retro Kombi van, the perfect collaboration of light and dark, cream and turquoise, and Trent knew he had found the colours to bring his dream ride to fruition. These were the colours to bring ‘Summer Jam’ to life.
Ok, that probably makes the whole incident sound a lot more ‘stalker-ish’ than it really was, but after spending a couple of hours talking to Trent Schaeffer, laughing as he happily took the piss out of himself and smiling as he humbly talked down his achievements in the chaotic history that is his life in and out of trucking, I was pretty confident he would be ok with me having a sarcastic exaggeration of his colour clarity moment back in 2022.
This truck has been a two-year labour of love to get on the road. It involved getting all the designs right, the weight distribution right, then converting those plans into a custom built truck and a custom built trailer set up. Then, of course, there is getting the cosmetics and colours perfect. It has been a very ‘to and fro’ project.
The end result is a tridem Kenworth with a quad axle trailer that can carry 34 tonnes and has over 40 pallet spaces. It means savings on registration and savings on wear and tear. Being able to do it while looking sharper than a serpent’s tooth has been a solid effort. And while you may not understand this pun just yet, all of the work put into ‘Summer Jam’ has cemented Trent’s position as a driver and company owner.
I am still laughing a little at that last line – I love a perfectly prepared pun and, as we delve into Trent’s ‘pathway’ through the transport industry, I will be ‘pouring’ out as many ‘rock-solid’ puns as possible. It might work best if I explain a bit of Trent’s history.
Trent has been truck-mad all his life – his dad has been behind the wheel nearly all of his life and, even when his parents split at an early age, Trent’s mum ensured he always got his necessary intake of trucking.
“I was a bit of a little shit when I was younger, so to calm me down, mum would take me to the Maccas at Enfield on the Hume and I’d sit and watch the Express trucks all heading out of town,” Trent recalls.
“When I was even younger and dad was running out of Port Macquarie, mum would take me down to watch him running through too.”
As a little tot, Trent remembers spending time in the K124 his dad owned, falling asleep to the deep rumble of the 892GM as it tore down the highway. It was that kind of experience, mixed with the memories of a Happy Meal and Express trucks barrelling down the Hume, that forged the fondness for trucks in a young Trent. It was his path to getting close to trucks, however, that would foster another love for the young man – a love that allows me so many more ‘solid’ puns – concreting – technically Trent’s passion is concrete pumping, but the puns work either way.
As soon as he was of age, Trent went looking for a job that would get him near trucks.
“I loved trucks, but I couldn’t drive them. So, I got a job working on a line pump, doing house slabs and stuff like that,” he says.
“I got to be in a truck every day. It was an old Louisville and a Scania; I thought it was cool as.”
That was his introduction to trucking as a job – sitting in the passenger seat of an old Louisville. It was also the introduction to the world of concrete pumping. For the next decade, Trent’s working career became more focused on the concrete pumping, with trucking being secondary.
“I love a challenge. For me, when I learn something, I want to master it. I want to be the best I can be at it,” Trent says.
“I got that from the old man, I think.”
The pumping world soon took Trent over to Western Australia, where he moved from line pumps to concrete booms. Along with fostering a whole new skillset within his trade, it also opened him up to new trucks.
“I remember when I first got to Perth and I saw this 55m concrete pump, it was a 10-wheeler DAF, and it was a cracker,” he says.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to work on that’.”
It was an aspiration that he would eventually fulfill after earning his stripes in the concrete pumping world over in WA.
By 2008, Trent had his Boom ticket and his HR licence and he was no longer sitting in the passenger seat of the concrete booms he was working in. The mix of the two skills saw him all over the Perth area, and even up in the Pilbara. Concrete pumping had become a ‘rock-solid’ career for Trent, however being behind the wheel of the various concrete trucks was also fanning the flames of his childhood trucking fanaticism.
Over the next few years, from 2008 through to about 2012 when Trent would garner his MC licence, and right up until 2021 when Trent would finally hang up his floats and remotes, there are so many tales that deserve to be told. It included floating between pumping and trucking, depending on how the wind blew. I recommend you grab a beer with Trent one day and laugh your butt off listening to some of them. Personally I suggest the three blokes, a WRX and crossing the Nullarbor tale – brilliant. My job, however, is to focus on how we got to this stunning ‘Summer Jam’ Kenworth. Therefore, I will try and focus on the trucking angle of that tale.
While Trent was over in WA ‘hardening up’ (sorry I’ll try and stop the puns), his dad sold his truck and was working for wages for Nicholson & Page, a general freight company based in Maclean New South Wales. Murray Schaeffer had moved from single trailer work and was towing a B-double behind one of Nicholson & Pages’ stunning Kenworth K104s. Murray was meticulous in his approach to trucking and his truck. He cared for that rig like it was his own, adding extras and keeping it cleaner than a showroom model. It is easy to see where Trent learnt the habits he carries over in his own company.
Trent would occasionally rock up back on the east coast and, when he did, he would occupy the passenger seat of his dad’s truck, which by 2008 was the legendary Endless Summer, a K108 Big Cab.
“That truck was cool as ‘F’,” Trent says.
“When I came over and went with dad, I got a taste for the B-doubles, they were awesome.”
By 2012, Trent was back on the east coast full time and his allegiances were swaying more towards life on the road than concrete pumping.
“I needed to get my MC so I could drive the B-doubles, I wanted to go driving,” he admits.
“I found a mob up in Brissy that did a course, and I came up and got my MC. I’d had a lot of time with dad, and he’d been making me drive with him at times. I had my MC learners’ from WA as well.”
As soon as he was signed off on MC and BFM, Trent headed back down to Port Macquarie, where he got a start with the man who would become a mentor and lifelong friend – Graeme Nicholson, or Nicho of Nicholson and Page.
“I owe a lot to Nicho, without him I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he says.
“He is still there when I need advice, guidance or just to talk. He and Meredith have helped me so much.”
The words of praise and high regard are contrary to his feelings when he first signed on as a Nicholson and Page driver, however.
“My first run I was driving dad’s 104, I did the run to Brisbane that he did, the only run I knew,” he says.
“When I got back to Port Macquarie, Nicho said can you do a load of bricks to Melbourne?
“I’d never been to Melbourne, never loaded bricks, I hadn’t even done angle and straps. Dad had always been old school gates and ropes. I was shitting myself.”
He survived though, and even thrived. Trent spent a bit of time sharing the Big Cab K108 with his dad, as well as bag chucking through the rest of the fleet. That was mixed in with concreting work back on the east coast as well. It seems that giving up the shovels and wheelbarrows wasn’t as easy as it seems.
Let’s jump ahead to early 2015, when concrete pumping was back in the favourites column and trucking was secondary. Trent was working in Darwin when he received a call from Nicho again.
“I’d made comments to Nicho before about wanting to buy the old man’s truck if he ever decided to sell it. I’d always wanted to follow in dad’s footsteps,” Trent says.
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“So Nicho rings and offers me the truck. It was more of a sentimental decision than a business decision because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”
Now before you go, don’t get carried away. Trent hadn’t yet fully given up the concreting – that wouldn’t come until 2021. In fact, the trucking was given away again before the concreting. I told you, grab a beer with him and enjoy the unedited version one day.
The purchase of the Nicholson and Pages’ K108 was the birthplace of what would become Schaeffer’s Transport a few years later. In the beginning, nothing changed other than the name of the Kenworth’s owner. Murray still drove the truck, in Nicholson and Page colours, doing their work. Trent was up in Darwin pumping and, with help from Nicho and his wife, the truck kept doing what it was doing.
In June 2015, after losing his mum, Trent came back to NSW and back into trucking.
“Dad had an operation in November and so I came back and just drove the heck out of that 108,” he says.
“For the next 18 to 24 months I just worked that truck. I got to know a lot of people because of that truck. If you had a fat truck, people wanted to know you. So, I got to meet a lot of people and contacts.”
Now I did mention this story goes back and forth a lot? Well, let’s go back again to concrete pumping. In 2017, Trent sold his trailers, took the 108 and began doing local work for Lawrence Transport.
“I’d met my wife and wanted to be home more and spend time with her,” he recalls.
“I started working for Lawrence Transport and they were amazing. When you tow for them, you are part of the family. I was doing stuff I hadn’t done – boxes, changeovers, all that.”
Mostly local turned into mostly changeovers, which turned into full runs and, before you know it, Trent’s on the road again more than he ever was. It wasn’t very conducive for a future family, hence one last swing at concreting for Trent.
“I sold the truck, which was tough. It had been a second generation truck for 11 years between dad and I,” he says.
That was May 2020. By February 2021, Trent was back again and the real Schaeffer’s Transport was created with a simple bit of Facebook scrolling.
“I loved concreting, but trucking was what made me happy. I was scrolling marketplace one night and found a big cab K200 for sale, It was a mint truck and I bought it,” he admits.
“I stayed on the concrete pumps and hired Chris Tibbit to drive it. Chris is rock solid, I was so lucky to get him. For the first 12 months he just worked that thing nonstop.
“He’s a champion, he’d fix things if he could and handle anything that came up. He only ever rang me if it was something he couldn’t sort out.”
By mid-2021, in the middle of the COVID crisis, Schaeffer’s Transport was flat-out. Trent had picked up several of his own customers and was subbying out a fair bit of work. His concrete pumping days had finally been called, not by him but by a dodgy knee. This meant his focus was purely on transport.
A second truck had been added to the fleet – no surprise that it was a classic old Kenworth, a K104, and now Trent was on the road alongside Chris.
“I remember meeting up with Chris at the donut at Port Macquarie and having the two trucks there, thinking ‘how cool is this, I have two trucks’,” he says.
By late 2021, with solid work keeping the boys busy, Trent started weighing up the idea of purchasing his first ever brand-new truck.
“I wanted to get a new truck for Chris, he deserved it. He worked his butt off to help me get this going and I wanted him to have a new truck,” Trent says.
The idea was also to see how to best maximise their efficiency, both for him and his customers.
“It’s about what you can save these days, not what you can make,” he says.
“I’d seen the likes of Dave Murphy’s twin steer single trailer setup and wanted the same. Though I’d also seen a lot of tridems in WA, but not here. I thought it would be easier to get the weight over a tridem than over the second steer axle. So, we started the process.”
It was not an easy path, involving a lot of conversing with Smedley’s Engineers (the experts in PBS requirements) and a lot of concept and approvals needed. Building the truck and trailer combination was a huge effort.
“When I first got it running, I had a lot of people saying it’ll never work, you won’t get the weight over the front, all that sort of stuff,” he says.
“But the turntable is sitting centre, we have an 8-pallet goose, with a mezz in the back. It’s a 24-space deck, with 40 pallet spaces and we can get 22.5 over the tri and 27 over the rear. That’s around 33.8 payload.”
Trent is the first to admit that it isn’t as versatile as a B-double set, but it suits his customer requirements and allows for plenty of time and cost savings.
Building the big girl was a two-year project that allowed Trent plenty of time to think about the cosmetics. Being his first brand new truck, it meant it was also the first time he could come up with his own company design.
Colours were the major conundrum, but we covered how that dilemma was solved in the opening paragraph. The why, however, is much like the rest of the truck.
“This was our first new truck, and I wanted something different. I wanted a different look, kind of old school, kind of American,” Trent says.
“I loved the look of P3’s K200 with the four tanks. I wanted the different mesh in the grill. But I also didn’t want too much going on.
“I had Dennis from Signs Lines and Scrolls do all the paint work. The colours were going to be retro, so I wanted that from Denis as well, which he nailed.”
Hyshine Customs was tasked with taking the standard K200 and making its mark, moving the Suzi Coil set up to an American rear end hookup while also adding the gantry and getting the under side of the cab painted. Then there was adding a couple of extra lights, but not too many. Painted tanks and visors were included, as opposed to stainless, and plenty of other additions that you can see In the photos were added. Inside has been fully customised as well, with Schaeffer’s customised seats, extra fridges and all the works you can imagine part of the build.
It is funny to think a tridem K200, with a quad axle trailer capable of a B-double load, isn’t different enough. But it then got pimped out with too much stuff to list, to the point that I won’t even try – I will just let the photos do all the talking.
After almost two years, the colossal K200 hit the road in July 2024 and has racked up nearly 200,000km so far. It has been a learning curve for everyone, but one that the concrete king Trent has thoroughly enjoyed.
“I’m lucky I’m surrounded by blokes with plenty of knowledge. I’m happy to learn if they are happy to teach me,” he says.
It is that kind of attitude that is helping Schaeffer’s Transport shine on and succeed in a highly competitive industry.
With more work and more trucks on the books for Schaeffer’s Transport, I do look forward to seeing what innovation comes through next. The only thing I recommend to Trent is to try finding your colour options through swatches rather than stalking. Apologies again to the unknown owner of the retro Kombi.
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