All Muscle: Jon Kelly’s HHA Western Star Butch Cassidy

Words by Chris Smith. ACT Issue 2 credits photography jointly to Jeremy Brown and Chris Smith.

Heavy Haulage Australia managing director Jon Kelly made the equipment part of the company’s identity. In Issue 2, ACT looked across his custom fleet and then focused on its newest Western Star 6900: Butch Cassidy, also known as Vilin1.

Kelly’s approach was difficult to miss. Big loads, big trucks and a deliberate visual identity all fed into the way HHA presented itself.

A transport background from both sides

Kelly grew up around trucks. One grandfather had a transport company and his father sold trucks. He bought his first truck at 19 and, by the time ACT interviewed him in 2013, he said HHA had around 70 trucks and about 115 staff nationally.

Those figures belong to the original reporting period, but they show how quickly the company had grown.

Kelly had a soft spot for classic equipment. Old V8 Macks, a W-model Kenworth and Peterbilt all appealed to him. He compared the desirable old trucks to muscle cars: the right model would still look right decades later.

His first new Kenworth, J Cash, remained a favourite because it had won awards and, in his words, still looked fresh years after entering service.

A style intended to last

Kelly described the HHA look as American, tough and traditional. He liked big exhausts and strong proportions but was less interested in graphics that might date quickly.

“I like our trucks to be cool,” he told ACT, explaining that the aim was to build vehicles that would still have visual impact 10 or 20 years later.

Butch Cassidy

The 2013 Western Star 6900 was the biggest model in the Western Star range at the time. Kelly rattled off the specification from memory: a 620 hp Cummins, an 18-speed main box with a four-speed ancillary transmission, Sisu hub-reduction diffs, RT650 walking-leaf suspension, heavy double chassis rails, six tanks and a 72-inch sleeper.

PJ’s Custom in Brisbane started with a white cab and red chassis and handled the paintwork. The company had previously built HHA’s Western Star High Roller, which went on to win Rig of the Year.

HHA completed much of the fabrication in-house, including mudguards, the rear light bar and toolboxes. Kelly said the growth in the fleet made internal fabrication increasingly practical.

The front bar came from King Bars. Heavy-haulage push-pull work meant strength mattered more than appearance alone. Kelly noted that HHA might have several prime movers working together on one movement, so the bullbar had to be engineered for serious use.

The result was exactly the kind of truck Kelly wanted: a working heavy-haulage prime mover with a finish that reinforced the HHA brand every time it appeared on the road.

ACT archive note: Fleet size, staffing, ownership and operations described here reflect ACT’s 2013 interview.