Once vehicle designers and engineers discovered the effect that proper aerodynamics had on fuel economy, it has been a battle between form and function. A beautiful vehicle can generate tremendous sales, but a fuel-efficient one can put a lot of money in your pocket over time. Take for example this 1989 Peterbilt Model 372 for sale on Craigslist in Los Angeles, California. Alleged to have been used in the film industry, this aerodynamic yet somewhat sinister truck has been customized and needs a new caretaker. Would you be interested in an example of the truck that drivers dubbed “Darth Vader” when it was new? Do you think that the visual effects of its radical aerodynamic improvements were worth a few more miles per gallon of diesel? Thanks to Rocco B. for the tip on this unusual truck!
Despite their reputation for gobbling up gallons of diesel, semi-truck manufacturers and various inventors have worked diligently over the years to make these trucks more aerodynamic and, thus, more fuel efficient. A few of these experiments started in the thirties when regulations concerning trucking came into being. While speeds were slower than what we are used to today, designers worked to round off edges and smooth out the flow of air around these trucks. Perhaps the biggest changes were brought on by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. This was the bill that helped fund the interstate highway system. Trucks had previously been used in town and on short jaunts to neighboring population centers. Cross-country hauls were almost unheard of. The interstates soon provided long, uninterrupted runs of much greater distances at higher speeds. Aerodynamic efficiencies that were negligible at lower speeds now took on an exponentially greater importance.
One of the problems that engineers and designers encountered was the overall length regulations imposed by the US government. To maximize the length of trailers, the cab of some trucks was moved from behind the engine to over it to gain a few more feet of trailer length. Trucks designed like this were known as cabovers and their aerodynamics were identical to that of a brick. In response, designers focused on rounding off the front end, including panels to make the transition between truck and trailer smoother, and skirting was added to some trucks and trailers. One of the most famous examples of this was Peterbilt’s Model 372. This Class 8 cabover featured numerous aerodynamic improvements that netted it over 11 miles per gallon pulling a standard load when conventional trucks struggled to provide 7-8.
Peterbilt produced the Model 372 from 1988 through 1994 with limited success. Its amazing fuel mileage was hampered by a driver culture that hated its looks. These cabovers were called everything from a “football helmet” to “Darth Vader.” It also came along far after the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 which did away with overall length restrictions. Demand was still there for cabover trucks, but that segment of the market steadily declined after the ruling. The last Peterbilt Model 372 rolled off the assembly line after seven short years of production as a result of diminishing demand and the fact that the days of the cabover were coming to a close for all manufacturers.
The 1989 Peterbilt Model 372 you see here is powered by a Cummins 400 diesel engine with a 13-speed transmission. Hinted in the ad is that this truck was used in the film industry but the claim is not backed by anything other than its Los Angeles area location. This Peterbilt has been treated to a $15,000 frame rebuild and has been given custom touches such as a set of black powder-coated Alcoa aluminum wheels and a set of full fenders over the rear axles. The only issue the seller tells us about is that the air conditioning system might need a charge. In the pictures, we see that the truck is in outstanding condition and has a fresh application of grease on the hitch plate to indicate that it is ready to return to work.
While Peterbilt’s Model 372 did not prove to be the end-all answer to semi-truck efficiency, it was a good effort that did save a lot of fuel compared to more conventionally styled trucks of that era. Its focus on aerodynamics is now seen on most over-the-road trucks and manufacturers are still chasing those efficiencies with new technologies and fuel sources. Hopefully, someone will purchase this truck and get it back on the road soon. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but money saved at the pump is pretty nice too.
Do you remember seeing trucks like this on the road in the eighties and nineties? Do you think the styling is that bad? Please share your memories and opinions in the comments.
Wow, where’s my checkbook! I have NO idea what I would do with this except maybe haul our other cars when they die, and maybe haul hay as much as I could use, and maybe haul trees when we harvest and maybe haul gravel for the whole farm…. Like using a sledgehammer when a pick hammer will do but I love it.
This is a great Cabover Pete. Way fancier than the Cabover Freightshaker ( Freightliner) I drove back in the 90s. I can attest to the fuel mileage of a cabover. Jeff hit the nail on the head, they had the aerodynamics of a brick. I had a Cummins M11 in mine. If memory serves right 300 HP and a little over 1000 ft. Pounds of torque at 1200 rpm. With a 9 speed ( nowheres near enough ratios should have been at least a 10 speed or preferred a 13 but I didnt order it). The best I could do was 8 MPG and it was governed for 60 mph so a Truck like this the aerodynamics would most certainly have helped. Great find, great write up and please keep then coming!!!
Driveinstile a 13sp. can handle most everything. Probably what I’d order.
Sure is great to see something besides Lambos and Corvettes and such, I heartily approve. I can’t add a dang thing to the authors well written ( and researched) post.For someone not a trucker, it’s spot on, like the Astro post, that was well received. Didn’t see many of these, mainly because the cabovers days were numbered. With the removal of “overall” length laws, trailer no more than 53ft, but no mention for the tractor, the focus became on the conventional. The fenders look corny, but do keep a lot of road spray down, and 11mpg sounds like what they’d like to get, but these trucks did no better than any other truck. Engine design just wasn’t capable of 11mpg. Most trucks, mine included, got between 5 and 6, this may have gotten 7, but it amazes me all these years later, trucks are still getting single digit mileage. I hated every cabover I had to drive, the setback steer axle Freightshaker was the worst, and this was a half baked attempt to keep the cabover folks happy, all 15 of them. Not sure what this truck did, but that 5th wheel is mounted way too far back. The dry 5th wheel tells me this was a hobby truck and probably all it’s good for today. It is a neat find. Thanks again, Jeff
I thought that about the 5th wheel too. If the film industry “connection” was that it was used as a scenery shifter, it might be that it didn’t carry a heavy load so maybe it didn’t matter where the 5th wheel was.
Makes it difficult to shift thereafter, though.
We only got long-bonnet trucks as truck-recovery vehicles, tank transporters and so on because of length restrictions. It’s all COE here, and I’d say that Renault and Scania were the aerodynamic frontrunners.
“Long bonnet”, love it, never heard that term here in the states, called “long nose” conventional. Watching footage from Europe, all you see are single axle cabovers and tri-axle trailers. They even race them, for some reason. American truck builders gave up on cabovers a long time ago and I can’t recall the last time I saw one.
Well, bonnet = hood for you, so it’s not a surprise that it’s novel.
I forgot; long nose stuff (there y’are!) was also used for heavy haulage – moving railway engines by road, for example. Pickfords used to do a lot of that; they used big Scammell trucks and the like.
Here’s a wee rabbit-hole for you.
https://scammellregister.co.uk/history/
I think the MPG written up here is a bit optimistic. Apparently the trucking industry uses Freight /Ton MPG as a standard that takes into account weight. In Howards day it was around 53, which made it very hard to get 7MPG. My Kenworth gets 5-6. Todays trucks have a FT/MPG of around 72, which equates to around 10 MPG. Better aerodynamics (trailer tails, skirts, cab wings, etc.), can improve that even more.
Shell is spending a lot of effort to improve this and has the Shell Starship that has a a FT/MPG of 183! You can certainly see the parentage of the Starship in the 372.
https://www.shell.com/motorist/oils-lubricants/rimula-truck-heavy-duty-engine-oil/shell-starship.html
Not a trucker by any means but I was involved in having to sell a few trucks I wound up owning recently. I got about half of what I could have sold them for a few years back. There’s still a major trucking recession going on and for $40k you could probably by something a lot newer and probably less than decade old. I really hope there is a market for this because it looks like the owner spent a lot of time rebuilding it.
From a service standpoint I hated Cab-Overs. Always a pain in the butt getting everything out of the way so you didn’t drop something hard and metallic against the windshield when you tipped the cab forward. I will say that they had an advantage when you had to pull the engine and transmission because they were generally a lot easier to get them out.
But so many linkages to hook up when the cab came back down. A lot of shift linkages bent or sprung and never worked quite the same again. Most of that was the driver’s word against yours.
A lot of American Cab-Overs went over to Indo-China and the PI. They loved the American trucks over there. They would shorten the frame, lose the front drive axle and use the rear axle. New truck with lots of power.
Nice truck here but I would rather get a conventional. I’ll never tire of a 359. This truck is living proof that old truckers never die; they just get a new…
Go on,,, a new what? With only 772 of these sold,( 110/year) it clearly was the answer to the question not many asked. Cabover drivers were a faithful bunch, many quitting, or buying the truck when the company updated. Many drivers I knew would do just the opposite, quit if the company got cabovers. I drove what the boss told me to.
As mentioned, I hated cabovers for the operation, although, cabovers were inherently better in close quarters. Cabovers scaled out a lot better too. I did very little repair on cabovers, except to “git ‘er home”, then it was the mechanics job.
Not to downplay this truck too much, for a cabover, it was a really nice truck. Pete or KWs are the nicest of all trucks, and would sure stand out from all the “generic” trucks out there.
Also, a 1988 372 was used in a 2002 movie called “Spun”, and not sure how it fits in, but that’s all I could find.
I didn’t want to get censored. I seem to run into that a lot lately on other blog pages. I figured that the average reader could fill in the blanks…
11 mpg is great, I had an HD Silverado that got 12 :(
Not ugly at all
I tried to buy one of these about 2010ish, but the seller wouldn’t budge off 15k for it, so I walked away. I think that truck is still parked right where it was then. I think this is priced way too high. These are usually low mileage rigs because nobody wants to drive them.
Like AndyinMA said, 11mpg is pretty dang good. I had an ’88 F250 with a 460 and C6 that could only dream of anything other than single digits – even when empty.
My dad drove semis for over forty years and he loved his cabovers. The last one he owned was a International 9670 with a 400 Cummins and a 9 spd. Always made him happy to be behind the wheel. He would have loved this one.
Hi guys! Not much of a big rig guy myself, but this thing’s really cool. My
late FIL drove trucks for many years and when he saw one of these, he told me that it was the ugliest effin’ thing he’d ever seen. It also reminds
me of the toy trucks I played with as
a little kid. If they ever remade Maximum Overdrive, this would most
definitely get the role of the villain truck just the way it sits. Wonder if I
could sell a print of it if I made one.
Several years ago, I saw a smart guy using a Peterbuilt cab over to pull the largest fifth wheel RV trailer you could buy out of the state park campground at Bull Shoals lake here in Arkansas. The weight of the biggest RV fully loaded is like nothing compared to the weights these trucks can pull, and a used cab over is about $50K less than a diesel F250, Ram 3500 or GM 2500 pickup. Of course, he had the cab over painted to match his RV, and it was dolled up with polished aluminum wheels, etc. I always wondered if he had to pull into the state weigh stations when he was traveling between campgrounds.
No, Frank Armstrong, if you’re not hauling commercially they don’t want you in the weigh stations, unless it’s one of the rare states that posts “ALL TRUCKS MUST ENTER WEIGH STATION”. I know this because I’ve pulled my RV with a retired Kenworth T2000 since 2008 and have never been through a weigh station with it. The fact that it’s registered privately (as a motorhome) helps, but even if a working trucker hauls his own RV with a commercially registered tractor, if the RV is his it’s considered private, and he’s also exempt from most weigh stations.
Thanks for the information on scale requirements!
Beautiful truck. I run local delivery, and if we make 5mpg, that’s considered good mileage.
My guess why this truck is being sold is because Cali is banning trucks that are not pollution free in the next few years, they’re pushing to go all electric. Time will tell how that works out…
Skuttlebutt says that mandate is losing ground daily. Not enough power on the grid to keep up with daily household/business requirements let alone charge a bunch of cars and trucks. My favorite is the $2.9M firetruck that lasted 56 minutes before the batteries were completely flat…
The Harley Davidsion plant used to have these for company trucks out of York PA. I drove cabovers for 15 yrs. No aerodynamics what so ever and Iittle harder to get into than a conventional. Bought a brand new 1977 White Road Commander in 1977 . Then when I bought a new Peterbilt in 1993 it was like going to heaven
The Football Helmet !
Cabovers are actually a little better aerodynamically than a conventional! It says so on the Internet!
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, I once drove a beetle. Cab overs simply were not popular with drivers, because of the huge number of coe’s that JBHunt bought IH designed a flat floor coe but they still struggled to get drivers so they switched to conventionalies and that was the last nail. Used light spec tractors used mainly for freight come to auction with 800,000 for 10 grand regularly but that said I find myself trying to figure out what I could use this truck for as hobby or toy. Nice truck to much money. GlWTA
From the position of the fifth wheel if this was used in Hollywood I would suspect it pulled fifth wheel rec vehicles for on site stars and starlet dressing room / mobile location sleeping accomodations use
Also looks like that 5th wheel position is adjustable, going by the toothed racks on the frame in front of it at each side. Could be they just moved it to the rearmost position for ease of maintenance and greasing the plate and didn’t bother moving it forward again between the axles where it would normally be for typical usage.
I can tell you a short wheelbase cabover was a whole lot easier to get into a tight delivery dock ,been there ,done that. 35 years of trucking
Does anyone have the answer? Why is it that all over Europe they only drive cabovers? Or, why is it that I here in the US truckers prefer regular trucks?
I believe because the roads are narrower than some here in the states
The roads are tighter, so space is at a premium. Another factor, though, is that in North America allowable axle weights are calculated according to a formula known as the bridge formula, in which the distance between the axles is a factor, so in combination with the lack of overall length regulations, longer wheelbase tractors are advantageous here, while that’s not the case in Europe, where short wheelbase cabovers rule the roads.
I like that it has a 2” receiver.
Great for pulling your 1,500 lb load limit Harbor Freight trailer!😀