Automotive History Transportation Trucks & Commercial Vehicles Australian Transport Commercial Vehicle Restoration Vintage Magazine Road Freight
Truckin Life Magazine June 2002 Vol.25 No.4 is a sought-after back-issue that Australian transport enthusiasts and restorers hunt for on the secondary market. Released at the height of the country’s road-freight boom, this 2002 edition captures a golden era of Kenworth, Mack and Volvo rigs working the Nullarbor, plus the custom paint and chrome culture that made Aussie trucks world-famous. Whether you need factory-spec reference shots for a K104 cab-over restoration, period advertisements for your collectables display, or nostalgia reading from the days of 40-inch sleepers and two-stick gearboxes, this single issue delivers it all in one convenient paperback.
Inside you’ll find road-tests of the then-new Mercedes-Benz Actros and a long-range FH16 Volvo that later became legend, plus workshop tips on tuning the ubiquitous Cummins N14 and a comparison between 46K and 52K diffs—information that never made it online and is still quoted on trucking forums today. The centrepiece is a 14-page photo feature on the Darwin-to-Adelaide road-train route, shot when the Stuart Highway was still largely single-lane bitumen; the images alone are worth the cover price for historians and diorama modellers. Rounding it out are classified ads for scarce aftermarket parts, vintage tyre suppliers and trucking memorabilia that now sell for many times their 2002 asking prices.
Collectors value June 2002 because it was the final issue printed in the larger “fold-out” format before Truckin Life downsized later that year, making intact copies increasingly uncommon. This particular copy shows the honest wear of a workshop reference that was thumbed through during rebuild projects: spine roll, corner creases and a small pen mark on the front—nothing that obscures text or photos, and all typical for a 20-year-old trade title pulled from a glovebox or toolbox. It is complete, unclipped and 100-percent readable, offering an affordable entry point for hobbyists who want the data without paying the premium mint copies now command.
Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.