This 1986 359 was custom built for Darwin Mathew’s on June 17th 1986, extended hood ,285 wheelbase, 3406 B air to air after cooled with 5 & 4 transmissions and 3.70 gears.He was an owner operator pulling oversized loads for an outfit in Houston called Ray Bellew and Sons the slogan on their trucks was” We could move the earth if we had a place to put it."

In 1988 Darwin sold the truck to my grandfather and drove it for him until he retired in 2008. Tobry was working for me at the mill and had driven truck before and he started driving it at that time.

For the last 36 years this trucks job was hauling pipe to west Texas or eastern New Mexico and bringing Alfalfa hay back to Houston.We also  run to Wyoming and get Timothy hay and get some wheat straw out of Kansas.

On the fifth of February Tobry was headed west with a load of pipe and a little north of Comanche TX a 90 year old man was in his car getting his mail and did a u turn in front of him, he was unable to avoid hitting him and the impact knocked the front tire off and shoved axle back breaking the leaf spring and he rolled over on the side of the road.By the time Tobry got out of the truck the old man was walking in his house and wasn’t hurt.Tobry wasn’t hurt either, very fortunate considering he rolled a truck loaded with pipe running 70 mph.

The glove box door was knocked off in the crash and Tobry brought it home with him, said he figured Darwin was riding with him that night.

This truck only had two drivers in 38 years,Darwin for the first 22 years and Tobry the last 16. There was another fellow drove it a few months in 2009 when Tobry couldn’t run.

It was also laid over in an accident around 1999 and torn up pretty good then and my grandpa had it fixed.

The first load it ever hauled was a crane cab from Houston to Jacksonville Florida.

Darwin retired in 2008 and died in 2019, I did some fertilizing and spraying on his pastures not long before he died and visited with him that day, he gave me these pictures then.

Around 1999 Darwin was turning right from a stop sign in Hobbs New Mexico and got rear ended by a freight truck that never touched his brakes, he was in the middle of his right turn and with the tall load of hay the impact knocked the truck and trailer over on the drivers side.

After the wreck in Hobbs it was fixed and painted dark green with black fenders and air cleaners, this is a picture with a load of lumber I sawed around 2012

I repainted it in 2017

Here are some pictures from the last few years

Elk Mountain Wyoming in the background 

It has hauled around 2,800 loads of alfalfa from Artesia New Mexico back to Houston in its lifetime and this was the last one,I had a customer wanting a few 3x3’s so I had them mixed in that load.

2-5-24  

The crash 

The ride home

 

After a month of insurance company headaches I paid the remaining balance on the  tow bill out of my pocket to get everything released, the owner of the pipe wanted his pipe and storage was adding up daily.I had them load the truck on the trailer so we could get them back home.

This is the same two trucks 25 years later,my uncle hauled it home from Hobbs on the trailer it was pulling in that wreck.

I found another 359 for Tobry  ,he’s put several thousand miles on it and it seems to be a good one.He took it to haul the wreck back home.

I’ll build another 359 with the drivetrain of the wrecked truck,I’ve got a cab and sleeper already located,I’ll probably buy a hood from Dans.I’ll have to get some new frame rails, it will be a project but I’ve taken on bigger jobs than this.

The A model was bought new by my grandfather and I was raised around these trucks ,they’re the only two I’ve ever driven other than helping some friends during harvest.

The 359  I bought  still has original paint and is good shape for its age, someone painted the fenders gold to match the stripes and put 8” stacks on it,hideous was the word I used to describe the gold fenders and 8” stacks, it originally had a varashield and sleeper extensions but the second owner took those off.I painted the fenders green and put 6” stacks on,I don’t really plan on changing much else with it.

I looked at a couple 379’s before I found this 359,just don’t have much interest in newer trucks.

When I get started on the rebuild I’ll probably make some posts on here about it.