Review: Peterbilt's 348 Class 8
EquipmentWorld.com  January 2010 31 TRUCKS Peterbilt's 348 leverages Class 8 bloodline by Jack Roberts T hink Peterbilt, and, more than likely, the fi rst image that pops into your mind is that of a long-nosed conventional tractor hammering hard down a lonely stretch of rural interstate, working hard to get its cargo to its destina-tion on time. Frankly, that's not a vision the folks in Denton, Texas, fi nd dis-pleasing. But like most American truck manufacturers, the company's fi rst trucks were vocational models: Founder T.A. Peterman was a Wash-ington state logger who couldn't fi nd a truck tough enough to get the trees he was harvesting to the mills in an effi cient manner enough to suit him. Since it was 1939, and in the aftermath of the Great Depression, one could purchase failed compa-nies for pennies on the dollar, Peter-man did what any annoyed Ameri-can businessman at the time would  he bought the assets of bankrupt Fageol Motors in Oakland, Califor-nia, and set about building his own line of chain-drive logging trucks. Since Ford was churning out trucks on an epic scale even then, Peter-man decided to concentrate on qual-ity as opposed to quantity. Peterbilt put 14 trucks on the road in '39 and another 82 the following year, and an American icon was born. Given those corporate roots, I wasn't surprised when Peterbilt invited me and other trucking journalists to Montreal, Canada, to evaluate two new vocational trucks  including the Class 8 Model 348. The truck features a wide array of upgrades and enhancements refl ecting the simplicity, maneuverability, value ew0110_Trucks.indd 31 12/18/09 3:18 PM