Mean Green Machine: Anthony Latorre’s Castlemaine-winning K200

Words by Chris Smith. Photography by Cody Portelli.

Anthony Latorre’s bright green Kenworth K200 had a demanding first appointment: the 2013 Castlemaine Truck Show. Thorpe Custom Trucks had roughly two months to turn a new prime mover into the one-off truck Anthony had in mind. It made the show and came away with Best Kenworth.

That result made the K200 look like an overnight success, but the build was really the product of a family transport background, a clear idea of what Anthony wanted and a custom shop prepared to take the design much further than fitting a few accessories.

A truck built around the whole package

Anthony already had a T904 known as Infamous in the family operation. The new K200 arrived from Kenworth Melbourne with a 620 hp Cummins SCR engine, a 22-series gearbox, 3.99 diffs and a 97-tonne rating, according to the original ACT feature.

He had a picture in his head of how the truck should look but gave Lee and Leon Thorpe room to interpret it. That freedom mattered. The custom work was approached as one complete design rather than a list of unrelated parts.

The job included a one-off drop visor, a reworked grille, custom steps and tank skirts, chassis infill, rear light treatment, exhaust shrouds, intake pipes and a specially made Bar Up front bar. Darryl Maud at Transart designed and painted the artwork.

Anthony had initially considered white. His father Vince pushed him towards a colour with more presence and green became the base of the finished truck. The decision defined the whole build.

Deadline pressure

The Castlemaine deadline gave the job an edge. Every fabrication decision, paint stage and fit-out task had to line up. The truck could not simply be finished when it was finished; it had to be ready to drive to the show.

Thorpe’s team got there. Winning Best Kenworth was Anthony’s first show win and a public reward for a build that had consumed a lot of energy behind the scenes.

A show truck with a freight task

The K200 was never intended to become a static display piece. At the time of the interview, the Latorre family business was mainly hauling B-double containers carrying stockfeed and grain bound for Tasmania. Vince had started the operation around 15 years earlier, with Anthony working alongside his parents Vince and Doris and other drivers.

That working role was important to the way ACT viewed the truck. It was heavily customised, but the specification underneath it still had to earn a living.

Lee Thorpe also told ACT the project had personal significance for him. After a difficult period, the K200 became the major show-truck build that helped restore his enthusiasm for customising. The originality of the details, the pressure of the deadline and the result at Castlemaine made it more than another fit-out.

ACT archive note: This feature records the truck, business and people as ACT reported them in Summer 2013. Specifications, ownership and roles may have changed.