I received a uncommon deal with mid-last month when Overdrive 2023 Trucker of the 12 months Jay Hosty occurred to verify in to notice he’d be rolling by means of Nashville bringing residence his 2022 Western Star 4900EX daycab as a daycab no extra. That is proper — plans on this case come to full fruition, with the addition of the 100-inch customized Alliance Truck Group (ATG) rear-door sleeper. It is a looker, as these large pictures clarify as he rolled into the Love’s on Trinity Lane the place we had been capable of meet up on a wet Wednesday per week earlier than Christmas.
The 2022 4900EX rolling into the lot.
As along with his prior Western Stars, together with the one memorialized by Eston Hoffman of Pennsylvania on the event of Hosty’s huge Trucker of the 12 months win this time final 12 months, the 2022 is Detroit-powered, but there is a huge distinction. Somewhat than the Sequence 60 in these prior rigs, the DD15 right here options some new wrinkles for Hosty with the selective catalytic discount (SCR) emissions-control system (to not point out an automatic 13-speed transmission).
[Related: Nominations open! Compete for Overdrive’s 2025 Trucker of the Year honor]
He is been sitting on full use of the unit now for a few years since buy, ready for the best worth for the sleeper construct, which received below manner and at last completed in 2024. (Even with the truck sitting by means of a number of seasons in his Diamondhead, Mississippi, residence base, worries over diesel exhaust fluid evaporation, he is discovered, could also be just a little greater than they have been cracked up.)
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The sleeper’s arrange with a rear door to the catwalk on the body, likewise a large, close-to-standup boot opening to the cab.
Down the motive force facet from the entrance, a small closet then offers solution to a „gaucho“ mattress, he stated, that folds as much as a desk with two seats.
Proprietor-operator Jay Hosty is pictured right here alongside the driver-side on the desk, with the mattress folded up.
On the passenger facet, the bathe sits simply behind the cab, then giving solution to the kitchenette.
The kitchen contains a fridge, sink and counter tops, storage, microwave and extra.
The structure mimicks what he’d had in his first Western Star and its Star Class customized sleeper, a shorter 80-inch bunk general however configured roughly the identical manner. A few particulars he’d hoped for did not make it into the ultimate design — he wished a barely shorter-than-standard mattress to maximise the width of the closet that sits between it and the cab, as an illustration.
With the truck itself, too, although he’d spec’d it with 2.64 rears to permit for a 60-mph cruise in eleventh gear for the 13 pace to maximise gasoline financial savings, the truck was delivered with 3.08 rears — „they stated they would not gear it that low as a result of it might be a 100-mph truck,“ stated Hosty, his „life within the sluggish lane“ motto however. Common readers will recall that motto was there for all of the four-wheelers passing him on the driver-side hood of his ’06 Western Star — nonetheless is there, the truth is. (Hosty plans to show that unit over the following years into a rig reserved solely for present, he stated.)
And with time, sure, he’ll get the lettering he wants for a similar on this unit. For now, the facet of the hood stays naked, although four-wheelers will nonetheless be passing it usually sufficient. Hosty hasn’t modified his in the end frugal methods, transferring slowly to avoid wasting on gasoline — he was getting round 10 mpg bobtail within the truck to date, he stated.
View of the instrument cluster from the motive force’s seat.
A formidable unit, throughout, turning the heads of a wide range of fleet drivers within the Love’s car parking zone after I noticed it final month. You will get a take a look at it your self come March, Hosty famous — he’ll have it parked up out entrance of the Louisville Conference Middle with the ATG show on the Mid-America Trucking Present. (Get registered for the large present at this hyperlink.)
Kuenn McClinton of Class on 18 Wheels, too, received his personal take a look at it after the construct at ATG headquarters in Indiana. Discover some video footage by McClinton within the vid under, following the attractive featured 359:
[Related: They said he’d fail, but he proved them wrong: Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year, Jay Hosty]
