Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85420
OWNER-OPERATOR OF THE MONTH Donnie Parsons spent two years converting a rundown antique Pete 359, making it the cornerstone of his aluminum and steel hauling operation. Mechanical mind D Donnie Parsons gives the same attention to his business and customers that he does to keeping his antique restoration in tip-top shape for the road. BY JAMES JAILLET reama Parsons first saw the 1971 Peterbilt 359 parked in a field not far from her Knoxville, Tenn., home in the mid-1990s. She and her husband, Donnie, a seasoned owner-operator, had stopped to look at the old rig a few times, too, but when it showed up in her driveway, she fretted. "I thought 'Oh, no,' on this project," 30 OVERDRIVE FEBRUARY 2012 she says of her worry that Donnie wouldn't be able to do what he wanted with it – turn it into a full-time working rig for his nationwide flatbed operation with Mason and Dixon Lines. But when he finished the two-year project in 1998 (while still running his 1982 Peterbilt 359 he bought brand new), t he antique beauty turned into a testament of his mechanical abilities. "He could visualize it," Dreama says. "I couldn't. But he's always done things like that. He's just got a talent for it." Donnie's since made a hobby out of tinkering with the old truck, many times out of necessity more than anything else. He has run the truck as he intended for nearly 15 years. David Grace