Every Mile in Style — Tropico Transport’s Kenworth T909

Tropico Transport creates a breathtaking Kenworth T909 for its farming business.

Words by Chris Smith. Photography by SLS.

Daniel and Aaron Serra are fourth generation farmers based on their Tolga property on the Atherton Table Lands in far north Queensland. The brothers work with their parents, Lyn and George, in their family business, Tropico Farms.

Part of the scope of any business is to minimise cost and maximise output and productivity. This ethos is what saw the Serra boys get into trucking.

“The whole idea of getting our own trucks is to get the freight cost lower and ship our produce ourselves,” Daniel explains to Australian Custom Trucks Magazine.

“Not only do we save on taking our produce to market, we also save on getting fertiliser and other supplies we need back to the farm.”

After first owning a second hand T908 Kenworth, the boys decided to sell the old faithful and purchase a brand new T909.

The truck was purchased through James Meakin at Brown and Hurley in Townsville and Daniel couldn’t praise James enough for all the work he did to ensure they had the best truck possible. Now, if you are reading this article then you know this isn’t a business story, this is a custom truck story and as you can see from the photos, these boys love the bling.

The truck was taken to SLS, based just outside of Newcastle, who put in 100s of hours dressing up the T909.

“We wanted some clean lines and a bit of shine,” Daniel says.

SLS delivered more than expected and the Serra boys are looking forward to taking the rig to a few shows to show it off.

Daniel tells ACT that Steve Lawler and his team have gone to great lengths to ensure the T909 is different from any other rig on the road.

“There are a few things on this truck that Steve’s team engineered that are very special and make this truck stand out from the crowd,“ he says.

While the externals of the truck are awesome, it is the inside of the cab that really impresses. The seats were removed and the cab stripped bare, allowing the SLS team plenty of room to move. An Icepack was fitted with 3 vent locations inside the cab; one for the top bunk, one for the bottom bunk and a third in the middle, just under the bottom bunk so cool air can circulate between the seats. A 19” TV was installed with custom mounting brackets, allowing the top bunk to still swing up and down while still achieving a comfortable viewing angle.

A surround sound stereo, DVD player and amplifiers were also fitted and custom housings made for the units. Additional housings were made for a subwoofer box and microwave which were fitted under the bunk. A invertor was installed in the rear bunk locker with power outlets housed in the subwoofer/microwave unit (along with a voltmeter and isolation switch).

Overhead UHFs were fitted with new white stick aerials and a phone kit but the final touch inside the cab was the conversion of all of the dash gauges from the standard black, to white faces with gold bezels.

On the outside, the long list of work includes many of the standard upgrades like a Barup bullbar, driving lights, grille mesh, grille bars, elephant ears, windscreen strips, drop visor, lighted stainless steel air rams, roof lights, mirror lights, spotter mirror brackets, tank wraps, strap wraps, Air Kooled exhaust stacks, side bunk trims, rear bunk trim, lighted wing trims, dovetail infill panel, air/ electrical relocation and smooth stainless steel mudguards with centre mount mudguard brackets.

Some of the rarer items on the truck include polycarbonate headlight defenders fitted to the inside of the bullbar; swan ornament with illuminated KW bug; ripple free mudguard style steer flares with quarter guard mudflap brackets; half size air cleaner covers; rear facing air cleaner lights; stainless steel tank steps with newly designed tank trims to suit; full stainless wrap on the battery box with anodised aluminium step treads on top; exhaust shroud light box and wing bracket covers.

The deckplates were made from a stainless propeller plate and sit flush inside the chassis rails. On the rear end is a custom spec, dropped rear bar with custom infill/ numberplate panel to suit. The paint job was done from factory, but a first for SLS was that the signwriting and scroll work was done in house.

SLS says that they didn’t use any pre-made products from their stock for this build.

“Every effort was made to cut all products from the same batch of raw material,” say SLS.

They even went as far as remaking the factory vanity panels so all the stainless matched. Countless hours went into this truck and as you can see from the photos, this is a rig that looks good front to back and inside to out.

It will be working hard running from North Queensland to Melbourne, but every mile will definitely be done in style!

Rear Vision: where are they now?

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