The Story of a Freightliner

In February 1995 a truck was purchased from Kansas Truck Center of Liberal, Kansas by G & G Hog, owned by Marvin Gehrke.  Our service manager Mark Benson worked for that company from 1980 to 1996.  He left G & G Hog and came to Truck Center Companies in 1996.

Cody Karl purchased that same truck from Truck Center Companies in 2000.  It had 357,000 miles on it.  Upon first walking onto the lot, Cody’s attention was drawn to a green flattop classic.  He was informed that it was already sold and was not for sale. So Cody found a different truck to purchase.  Within three days, Cody had financing approved only to find out that the original green truck that he wanted was now for sale.  Needless to say, Cody purchased the green truck that had first caught his attention.  He started hauling cattle, grain, and lumber out of Salina.  It was the dependable truck that he had been looking for.

Cody came into Truck Center Companies for service and dealt with Mark Benson.  Mark knew exactly what truck Cody was having problems with, because he had maintained it while he had worked for G & G.  Mark was able to fix Cody’s issue with no problem.

Cody continued to do business with TCC of Salina and eventually brought in the green Freightliner Classic with 1,163,000 miles, to rebuild it for the first time. Cody then ran it for another 750,000 miles and rebuilt the engine again with no oil change.  This truck was used for advertisement with Golf Coast Filters during that time.  He maintained the truck and decided to do a full restoration in October 2014 and completed it in February 2015.  This truck is running and now has 2,400,000 miles.

Since 2000, Cody has purchased an additional twelve trucks. He is running eleven trucks in his company. Mark and Cody have stayed in constant contact over the years and have maintained a friendship that started out with the purchase of one green Freightliner Classic.