This is a tribute to the drivers who never made it home and to those they never made it home to. Living and working in the transport industry makes for a tough life on a good day and a life altering one on a bad day. We carry the risks of our profession every time we fill out the logbook and every time we turn those wheels to make a mile. Grief and loss are companions we never aim to collide with, yet we can be joined by them on any given day. Many of us have lost friends and family to the industry we love, and it does diminish the appeal of our career choices. It is the downside to our profession but a reality nonetheless.
The ying to that negative yang, however, is the fact that our industry also has the ability and the passion to celebrate, acknowledge and immortalise the loved ones we have lost. There are hundreds of trucks carrying tributes to fallen drivers around this country and that is a massive testament to the pedigree of people in our industry. Simon and Jamie McMahon are two of those good people that make you proud of the personalities we produce, and their brand new K220 truck, plated TRI8UTE, is a rolling memorial to not just a fallen driver, but to all those lost in the pursuit of their passion, as well as the families they never made it home to.
Simon and Jamie run S & J McMahon Transport, a south-east Queensland bulk carrying company with some of the most mouth-watering rides motoring around this huge country’s farms. Their fleet now sits at 16 trucks, with the majority of them sporting big bold Kenworth bonnets. They are all adorned with countless sheets of stainless steel or polished alloy and between them they no doubt account for a fair share of our country’s annual Tyre Shine consumption figures. Their family of drivers and staff all have the same level of steadfast enthusiasm and dedication that Simon and Jamie began their small company with, and it is the reason ‘a dirty McMahon truck’ has become the hard-to-hit spot on a truck spotter’s bingo card.
Simon and Jamie are also renowned for putting a lot of heart and soul into their trucks. In 2023 the couple garnered attention with a stunning men’s mental health Kenworth T909. Decorated with plenty of artwork, quotes and specialised detail, the couple put the truck on the road because they felt strongly about raising awareness for men’s mental health and wanted to get more conversations started. It even graced our pages as a feature in its early days.
In that same year, in conjunction with their long-term trailer manufacturer Robuk Engineering, they debuted their incredible Melbourne Storm T909 and trailer combination at the Brisbane Truck Show. As a Warriors fan, I will refrain from crediting the couple with too much adoration, but it’s a pretty cool truck and still turns heads with a vengeance.
Last year, with the arrival of the 2025 Brisbane Truck Show, the couple once again teamed up with Robuk Engineering to unveil another rolling masterpiece in their stunning TRI8UTE Kenworth K220. The truck may have had its origins birthed in one of S & J McMahon’s darkest days, but the couple, along with plenty of assistance, has taken that trauma and focused it on building an amazing tribute to not just one of their drivers, but to all of us drivers and all the families that go through the worst of our industry’s times.
Leading the motivation behind this build was the harrowing day in early 2024, when Simon and Jamie woke to the news they had lost one of their drivers, Jake, in an accident. It is the call that no one ever wants to receive. For the extremely tightknit family company, it was the first experience with an incident of this nature. Of all the things we can get training courses in these days, dealing with loss and grief is something that there is a huge gap in.
It was a devastating time for the company as a whole. For Simon and Jamie, who take their workers on as family, not just employees, it was a particularly difficult time. The young couple are very well in tune with the importance dealing with issues openly, acknowledging incidents and the benefits of talking. As such, when they were looking at a new truck months after the event, it was almost a given that this new truck would be a way of paying tribute to fallen drivers. However, not just the drivers. The experience of losing a driver really highlighted to the couple how difficult it is on the family and friends and hence the TRI8UTE truck started to take shape.
“We didn’t want to go over the top with this one,” Jamie admits.
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“We wanted to try and turn a terrible situation into something nice. We really wanted to get the words and message out there, but in a respectful way.”
The decision was made to use the truck for the smaller details and use the trailers to get the messages across.
“With the Storm truck, it was all about the truck and the trailers were just sort of painted to match, but with this one we wanted the trailers to be the statement piece,” Simon says.
As is the hallmark of Simon and Jamie’s truck building routine, they went straight to their trusted team of suppliers that have also become part of the family as each new truck gets added to the growing fleet. The couple shared their aspirations for the new rig and took on all the input and ideas thrown at them.
“It was a long time in planning,” Jamie says.
“We had an email chain going with us, Chris Palethorpe from Brown and Hurley, Bernie from Blaze Industries in Toowoomba, Damian Gibbs from MasterArt, and of course Darren and James from Robuk Engineering.”
Everyone pitched in with thoughts to help accomplish the young couple’s respectful goal.
The colour choices are very much a McMahon favourite – while they have a lot of variety in the fleet, the blue is a preferred option. The lines and scroll work came from a lot of Jamie’s homework and the talented brush of the maestro himself in Damian Gibbs.
Credit for creativity in the trucks details is firmly handed over to Bernie from Blaze who, while subtle, added some incredible features.
“Bernie put a lot of effort in with this,” Simon attests as he points out many of the custom touches.
“The truck is named ‘Give Heaven Some Hell’ for Jake. It’s a song by Hardy, have a listen. So, Bernie came up with a lot of ideas based around that. He had several goes at the wings on the trucks rear bar – if you look between the drivers on one side there’s an angel, on the other a devil. Even the lights, white lights facing forward, red back – all of that was in line with the truck’s name.”
While the truck packs in all the personal details, Simon and Jamie wanted the trailers to be the understated message board for their tribute truck.
“I have to give a lot of credit to Jamie for how all the artwork come about,” Simon admits.
“She spends hours and hours on it, I’ll just go ‘yes that’s good’, but she’s a perfectionist and wanted it to be respectfully done.”
Jamie is the first to credit the magic of Damian Gibbs for how it has all flowed together in the final outcome.
“We knew what we wanted, we wanted to get the Lights on the Hill memorial on the back. Especially with the ‘all gave some, some gave all’ quote,” she says.
“I like the one on the side as after our accident it really hit home – ‘a tribute to the drivers who never made it home and those they never made it home to’ – that really resonates. Damian was great at making sure we got it all in, but keeping it understated.”
I should actually mention this truck is more than just a TRI8UTE truck, it is a working rig and quite an impressive set up as well. Simon and Jamie may love their trucks and may love them to look amazing, but they also need them to make money as well, and the flexibility of this unit really is worth a paragraph on its own.
“The reason we put the 220 in front with this one was so that we can get the whole A-double in that 26m window,” Simon admits.
“So we can run it on normal B-double routes, we’re capped at 72-tonne gross on B-double routes but then on permits that changes. Also being stag with a goose neck dolly, you can jack knife it to tip off. When tipping grain on the bunkers, we don’t have to unhook or anything, it works really well.”
The keys to the 10-month project were handed over to one of the newest S & J McMahon family members, young Nick Elliot.
“Nick was really honoured to get this new one, and he deserves it, heck I reckon he’s on the wash bay about three times a week,” Simon laughs.
I can attest to Nick’s professionalism and attention to detail – he was driving the rig for the photoshoot and anyone that can put up with my pedantic directions and not tell me where to go has the right demeanour.
I recommend having a close look at the images, check out all the hard work and detail that so many have put into this complete package and appreciate the heartfelt drive behind it. As I alluded to at the beginning, we are lucky in our industry to be able to acknowledge and pay tribute to those we have lost, as well as those that are left behind, and Simon and Jamie, along with all of those involved, have done an amazingly respectful job putting this set up together and spreading the word. Keep your eyes open on the Queensland highways for this stunning TRI8UTE and while you’re waiting, go listen to ‘Give Heaven some Hell’ by Hardy. A perfect song choice.
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