Cardboard creators

These three young truck enthusiasts from Southland recently embarked on an awesome project – making trucks out of cardboard.

We recently popped in to Winton and caught up with local 12-year-olds Cooper McDowall, Isaac Davis and Flynn Harland. The three mates are mad keen up- up-and-coming truckies whose passion for the transport industry is off the scale. Silent reading time for these young lads is not your Alex Rider or Harry Potter – no, these guys will be found nose-deep in a copy of the latest New Zealand Trucking and Little Trucker Down Under magazines.

The boys were inspired by a task set for them at school.

1) Cooper’s blinged out T909 shining in the Southland sun.

2) Real road-train spec, big Donaldson Cyclopac air cleaners with hi-rise air intakes and air-rams.

3) Heavy-duty bull-bar with quad driving lights.

Cooper’s big T909 about ready to head into the paint shop.

All the finishing touches, right down to the KW bug.

“Our teacher had the class make some shoes out of cardboard,” says Cooper. “This gave me an idea, so I said to Isaac and Flynn we should make a truck each out of cardboard and stuff, and then have a competition to see which one is the best.”

The following weekend they were all into it, scavenging about for various shapes and forms of cardboard boxes, as well as all other manner of usable items they could lay their hands on around the house. A visit to the local $2 shop for materials was also a must. There were hot glue guns and glue sticks all over the place.

Looking over the models, the dedication to detail is on point – from underbody exhausts through to CTI systems, it’s all there.

1) Isaac’s K104 with two-deck stock crate is set to go.

2) Two full rows of bullet lights and a drop visor – all the bling.

3 & 4) Crate on, crate off – Isaac’s multiuse deck built out of a Lion Brown beer box.

5) CTI – these boys thought of everything.

6) Nothing like the sound of an underbody exhaust system venting out both sides of the chassis

7) Even twin fabricated thin- profile air intakes up the back of the cab; it’s all there.

8) Isaac has also made the back door of the crate slide open.

Cardboard creators

These three young truck enthusiasts from Southland recently embarked on an awesome project – making trucks out of cardboard.

LITTLE TRUCKER

LONG HAUL PUBLICATION