Posted by Clint Dixon [162.158.75.127] on Saturday, January 20, 2018 at 18:11:16 :
In Reply to: Is This Tim Peterson's Old Truck? posted by Greg Coffin [172.68.34.49] on Saturday, January 20, 2018 at 16:14:41 :
That was Soni Henninger's truck. (I probably did not spell that correctly). He brought it to the VPW Rally one year.
A little bit of history if I am remembering everything correctly:
It started out life as a Plymouth Trailduster. It appeared in one of the big three four wheel drive magazines back in the early 1980's, painted yellow, and still had the original body. I believe the story was told that Soni emigrated to this country from Switzerland some time in in the 1070's or early 80's and brought the Trailduster with him. I think it was a 1978 or 1979 model. It did have the snorkel on it when it was shown in the magazine. I talked with Soni at the rally and I brought up the subject of the earlier incarnation appearing in the magazine. He was amazed that someone actually remembered seeing the early article.
Soni ran a towing service and converted the Trailduster into a wheel-lift tow truck. At sometime, he removed the original engine and installed a 426 Hemi. It appeared again in another magazine and was painted OD with black accents - grill guard, roll bar, etc. By the time he brought it to the Rally, It was painted all OD and he was pulling a water buffalo that contained his spare fuel supply.
He later was invited to attend one of the first tough truck challenges by one of the top three four wheel drive magazines. They did not show photos of the engine as that took away from the "beater" theme of the competition. I believe the truck did pretty well in all but the drag races. It was pretty heavy and it probably was unable to rev to its maximum HP in short drags. I think it had two frames, one stacked on top of the other.
Soni told me that there was always someone offering him thousands of dollars for the engine alone. And this was in the late 80's or early 90's. I saw a listing of the truck for sale sometime after that and the engine was gone. I think it was a later owner that removed it.
Soni then appeared in another four wheel drive magazine having built a Jeep CJ with extreme axle articulation, for rock crawling, one of the first ones I had ever seen.
I have seen the truck for sale at least one more time before this. I will have to see if I can scan some photos from the Rally.
Junior
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