Southland Transport Invercargill Truck Parade – 2019

The last weekend in October is truck show weekend in Southland, and once again the locals turned out in force to celebrate a vital contributor to local prosperity.

Photo: Cole Frew alongside the Kenworth K200 he drives for Dunedin Bulk Haulage on contract to Mainfreight that won the King Rig title.

Held on the Sunday of Labour Weekend, the country‘s southernmost show works well for the local trucking industry, being at a time of year when workloads are low, enabling good participation from the local road transport fraternity. All the weather forecasts for most of the week leading into Labour Weekend were for intermittent showers on the Sunday, following a brilliant day on Saturday. This caused many truck show participants from out of town to arrive in the city early to avoid road grime. Although predictions were correct, it didn‘t dampen the atmosphere quite so much as the defeat the previous night of the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup semi-final.

There were 107 trucks registered to compete in the 35 classes, which were well supported with prize packs and trophies. A few more trucks also joined the street parade that started at PGG Wrightson‘s wool store, then skirted the outskirts of Invercargill‘s city centre, delighting the huge crowds of people lining the route, finishing at the Newfield Tavern where the prizegiving function was held. The convoy took about 45 minutes to pass by. The standard of presentation of those competing posed a difficult job for the judges and required several revisits in order to attain a fair outcome. The King Rig title was won by Cole Frew with the immaculately presented Kenworth K200 he drives for Dunedin Bulk Haulage, contracted to Mainfreight on mostly floating work nationwide. Close runner-up was Bronson McLean from DT King Transport with a Mack Granite log truck.

Eden Haulage featured highly in the prize listing and was chased hard by DT King Transport to take out the best fleet award. DT King came with a good mix of log and rural trucks from several of their depots, as well as their superbly restored International KB7, which was entered by Dave King. A huge vote of thanks must go to the Purdue family from Invercargill who are really the engine room of this event. Mark Purdue organises most of the event including traffic management plans and sponsorship, as well as coordinating the venues for the show itself and the prizegiving function. The family affair is completed with Mark‘s wife Dianne and mother Sylvia behind the limelight collating all the judge‘s decisions and scoring the various classes, as well as other administrative duties.

Photo: D T King Transport always display a good number of trucks. Bronson McLean‘s Mack Granite was a definite head turner.

Photo: Bradley Curtis quite deservedly won the best stock truck title with this Hokonui Rural Transport Freightliner Argosy.

Photo: Ryal Bush Transport has always been a great truck show supporter and this new DAF drew plenty of attention.