True Colours: Marcus Gibbins’ custom Kenworth K200

Marcus Gibbins celebrates his first brand-new Kenworth with a distinctive colour scheme and personal custom details.

Words by Chris Smith. Photography by Lindy Annett.

For some a truck is everything and for others it is simply a tool of the trade. For Marcus Gibbins, owner of Gibbtrans, his new K200 Big Cab is both. It is the first Kenworth that he has bought brand new and to celebrate the achievement he has gone back to his original colours rather than plain white trucks he has had of late.

Marcus has spent time adding special elements to this truck with a vision of creating a truck that is truly unique.

There is no doubt he has made this truck special. Yet he states, “It is still just a truck.”

“I thought I would buy one for myself and do what I want to do to it and have it the way I want it because I am paying the bills,” he laughs.

This truck can be viewed as a reward for a career in transport that Marcus was destined to have. His partner Kellie says the truck has made a mark on the family and Marcus’ three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Lilly-Rose has named it Kenny!

In Marcus’ life other jobs were there to kill time before being able to get his truck licence.

He left school at 15 to become a brickies labourer followed by working in a Coles supermarket until he got his licence at 18.

“I turned 18 and I came back and started driving for my dad,” he tells ACT.

He was ambitious from an early age and it was a bit over 12 months he thought he would start driving for himself.

Trucking was in the family and his brothers all drove as well. He says his dad, Jim Gibbins, guided him well in the business and ensured a solid start to his career, which he is thankful for.

“I stepped out into the job, dad had a bit of work on that he used to feed onto us to get us going,” he explains.

As a third-generation truckie starting Gibbtrans in 1997 at only 19 years of age wasn’t too much of a stretch at all.

Nevertheless, he did the hard yards and the job has taken him all over the country doing a variety of different things including running to North Queensland and Western Australia doing road train and interstate express work.

Today the company, Gibbtrans, runs six trucks running general freight out of Melbourne to Western Victoria and through to Mt Gambier and into New South Wales.

Lindy Annett supplied some spectacular photography capturing the presence of the K200 and the customisation inspired by Marcus.

The striking livery is based on the Sultana Brothers motif. Marcus explains the connection to the Sulatana Brothers first came about through a truck he purchased.

“The red comes from the Sultana Brothers because the first ever Western Star I had was one of Charlie’s ones that I got my hands on,” he tells Australian Custom Trucks the story.

“I became friends with Charlie and I asked him, would you mind if I keep your colours and he said by all means, keep my colours.

“I had the two Western Stars in these colours. I went to white trucks but when it came time for the Big Cab K200 I thought I would go back to my original colours, that I like.”

He purchased the K200 from The Barry Maney Group in Mt Gambier from salesman Craig Mccallum.

Marcus says he had it all painted red from the Bayswater Kenworth factory and then gave it to the experts at All State Truck Repairs based in Campbellfield Victoria for the stripes, scroll work, signage and the custom finish. The tanks, smooth aluminium deck plates, guards and air intakes have been painted and adorned with scroll work or stripes or both.

He says Wayne Hoffman from All State added about 10 coats of clear paint over it to give it a great finish.

Marcus relished the opportunity to direct the customisation on the truck.

For the stainless work he enlisted the services of Brett Henley from Mt Gambier.

“Brett, well, he builds race cars.

He does a bit of work for the Barry Manney Group,” he says.

“We came up with some unique ideas for the stainless work, it was a combination of his ideas and my ideas,” Marcus says.

He added to the look with a tough custom bullbar, as well as custom made tool boxes, side steps and tanks steps.

“I designed all the interior of how I wanted it done, I wanted the cupboards where the microwave was and made sure I got a coffee machine in it,” he says.

“We drink a lot of coffee, it doesn’t matter where you go, it’s never as good as you want it.”

The cab interior has luxurious sandstone leather trim and all the modern conveniences for life on the road including and LG Microwave, custom storage space, a fridge/ freezer, a TV, an Ice Pack and last, but not least, that Nespresso coffee machine.

The coffee machine has been a great idea that he has put in the latest K200 Big Cab addition to the fleet as well. His second K200 has all the trimmings but he has reverted to white.

Marcus says he purchased the K200 Big Cabs to do B-double work and he foresees they will do future pocket road train work as well.

He has been traditionally a Western Star devotee but decided to go for the change because the K200 being a cabover allows for more flexibility for different applications and also has more room with the K200 Big Cab at 2.8 metres.

It also has a Cummins Engine 600HP, 22 Series Gearbox (2050 lbft), 2250 lbft Easy Pedal Clutch/ RT 46-160GP Diff Meritor/ 4.30 Gear Ratio/GVM 110 tonne rated so is specced for all sorts of trucking work.

Rear Vision: where are they now?

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