Royal Rides — the Sultan of Johor’s custom Mack Superliners

Icepack Services customises two Mack Superliners for Malaysia’s Sultan of Johor under an extraordinary deadline.

Words by Chris Smith. Photography supplied.

His Royal Majesty the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj, is known for his admiration of trucks and late last year received the most expensive Mack ever commissioned.

Although no official numbers have been recorded, Mack says it was well over the previous record of AU $481,000.

The Mack Super-Liner features a luxury leisure deck, gold-thread embroidery, a golden tiger hood ornament from Wallace Bishop and a specially-designed sleeper unit 80 per cent larger than standard with imported South African leather upholstery.

Built at Mack’s Wacol factory in Brisbane, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail’s Super-Liner was designed to haul his Cigarette racing speedboat.

This year Sultan Ibrahim Ismail has added two more Macks to his royal fleet.

They both came out of Mack’s Wacol plant.

Ice Pack Services (IPS), based in Toowoomba, Queensland, was commissioned to customise the truck to a royal standard. IPS was responsible for the stainless steel and accessory side of things. The internal appointments and electrical work was done by other contractors.

Robert “Bones” Manteit from IPS wouldn’t have imagined two trucks that his company had customised would be leading a royal cavalcade cheered on by the masses.

For IPS it all started with a call from Craig Macpherson from King Bars.

Craig called Bones just before Easter wanting to know if he would be interested in working on a top secret project.

Two trucks needed to be completed for Malaysia’s Sultan of Johor for an upcoming State event in May.

After assessing what would be possible with Mack, and the IPS staff, Bones got onto the job.

The job was massive and eventually drew all the staff onto the project. It took 980 man-hours and was all completd in just 11 days.

The deadline was tight because the trucks had to be shipped to Johor and a contractor assigned to the task previously didn’t do what they were meant to.

Luckily Bones runs an extremely tight ship. The brief was to hide the chassis and the undercarriage of both trucks to give the Macks a streamlined look.

The Sultan was very much involved in the build process Bones explains. His head truck mechanic is an Australian and knows the Mack product and had an idea of what the Sultan liked.

“The Sultan’s mechanic came over and he would take photos and send them directly to the Sultan if anything got changed,” Bones says.

The first obstacle arose when IPS discovered both Super-Liners were built slightly different to each other. Bones, as much as he can, tries to get all the parts ordered ahead of schedule and all necessary parts manufactured in house cut and ready for when the trucks come off the road.

Most trucks are working trucks and the idea is to optimise the work flow so a truck doesn’t have to stay off the road for long.

“We measured the first one and they said everything was a carbon copy, but it wasn’t,” Bones explains.

“So we had to measure up everything again and start from scratch for the second truck.”

All the steel work is wrapped in stainless steel and even a 5mm difference is too much to complete the task properly.

Starting from the front the Super-Liners received new stainless grille bars with mesh inserts.

Stainless steel bug deflectors were put on both however stainless steel wheel arch strips were only put on the gold Super-Liner. Both trucks received pre-cleaner covers with lights.

Only the gold truck received a drop visor though.

Stainless steel mirror skins with lights were added as well as stainless steel covers for the front mudguard brackets.

Both trucks received a peep hole surround and stainless steel inserts for the door handles and the surrounds.

Door kickers were added as well as lights in the bottom trim under the doors. Stainless steel inserts were used under the steps and inside the steps to hide the chassis, to follow the theme.

New exhaust shrouds were added, that are the same length as trims under the bunk. New trims, with lights in them, were added under the bunk and moved to the outer edge.

The locker door handles were also changed to chrome.

Bottom tank trims were added, all with three lights.

The Diesel tank caps and water tank cap were all hand made in the Mack style for the back rear tank. A pressure pump was added for the water tank.

Trim around back of the bunk with Mack cut out was V’d to meet the side skirts.

Steps were added on both sides of the chassis, all with stainless steel backing and infills behind and inside the steps to hide the chassis.

Lights were fitted into each edge of the steps.

The stainless steel wheel guards were added with stainless inserts to conceal the tyres.

Propeller plate deck plate was added in front of the turntable with a compartment for airlines to be stored in.

Tank bracket covers were placed on top of the straps.

Inserts were also placed in the back of the tanks to hide the chassis.

“We had to make tank steps and tank kickers with lights, the scorpion truck had white green and blue lights while the gold truck only had yellow lights,” Bones says.

Full length skirts were used along the turntable mount, angled back to the chassis, all with lights.

The skirts were made in a way that they are able to be easily removed so the truck can still be worked on.

Rolled inserts were used between the wheel guards, these all have stainless steel covers. These were made to be used between the guards and have a removable cap so umbrella poles can slide into them. The umbrellas are used to shade the back deck which is used as a viewing platform at different events. Cupboards on the rear of the cab house deck chairs for the deck. It also has a Hayman Reece tow hitch to pull a trailer.

Custom cover pieces were also made to cover all the sliding turntable components.

The rear taillight bar has “Johor” cut out as well as lights in it, a reversing camera and police flashing lights.

A side panel was created to cover the chassis at the back with rolled infills.

A removable hatch behind the turntable was put in to house a 4kg gas bottle and for general storage.

The chamber housing the gas bottle had to be cut out and built up on a frame.

It also needed to be easily concealed as well as lockable.

The gas line was run along the chassis to the slide out BBQ fitted to the driver side under the bunk, with a swing out tap and sliding draw.

The BBQ lid is the same colour as the respective truck and the draw is covered in the cab material. Special number plate frames were designed to suit the special royal number plates.

The Icepack unit was fitted by Haultech in the left hand rear tank and this tank is also used to store extra batteries.

The other tank opposite this fake tank is a water tank which also houses a water pump.

To finish it off the bullbars are fit for a king and provided by none other than King Bars!

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