Restored Peterbilt at Brunswick

The Ridolfo family is well-known in the WA transport business, and the son of company founder Vince Ridolfo has restored the family’s first truck to preserve some important family history.

Daniel Ridolfo will show his father’s Peterbilt truck that he fully restored over eight years at Tracmach’s Lights on the Hill at Brunswick this month.

Mr Ridolfo said the truck was the first of its type in WA. His parents bought the truck when they began their business in 1957 when the late Vince Ridolfo started harvesting and transporting wooden power poles in his used Ford truck for what was then the State Energy Commission of WA.

“The truck was also one of the the first of 117 Peterbilt trucks imported into Australia,” he said.

“In 1967 he traded it on a second 351 Peterbilt, which had a steel chassis instead of the aluminium chassis on the original truck.

“My father died in 1988 and I found the truck in 1999 in Innisfail, Queensland in a very, very sad state. I restored it by completing stripping it down and then rebuilding it to its original condition,” Mr Ridolfo said.

“All the panel parts were made and used a common American drivline, because they haven’t really changed much over the years.”