Into the MATS “Wayback Machine” Part 2

With just a couple days to go before the 40th anniversary edition of MATS launches, I can’t help but wonder whether diesel prices will hurt attendance.

Recently, I paid more for 5 gallons of motion-lotion for my farm tractor than a lot of truckers would have paid for a full tank back then. In 1972, you could buy a barrel of oil for what you’re paying for a gallon of diesel today – with enough left over for a thermos of coffee and a doughnut. That changed overnight in 1974, when the Arab oil embargo kicked the price of crude to a sky-high $12 a barrel. 

In the early 1970s, the parking lots around the Expo Center would have displayed nameplates now found in the restored historical section of the Paul K. Young truck beauty championship – Autocars, Chevy Bisons, Dodge cabovers and Big Horns, White/Freightliners, Hayes Clippers, B-model Macks, Diamond Reos, and GMC Generals.

There’d have been lots of cabovers, with massive doghouses blocking the crawlspace into sleeper boxes that were just that – boxes. Accommodations aboard conventionals weren’t much better. A driver at the 1972 MATS who ran through the Time Tunnel and wound up at the 2011 show would think he was dreaming, or in heaven, once he laid eyes on even the most modest factory sleeper. I said “he” – there were some women truckers then, but darned few.

Of course, trucking was a different industry then. True long-haul driving had only begun to emerge as a major occupation. Under construction since the late 1950s, the interstate system was rapidly replacing smaller, slower, more crowded routes long plied by truckers.

So drivers demanding bigger trucks, bigger engines, bigger sleepers and began to find them at MATS. It was a time that put the “big” into big rig.

That golden time came to a crashing end with the independent trucker strike of 1979, which signaled other changes to come. If anything, trucking would become even more of a lifestyle and a way of life, but it was also clear that this was one tough business.

But, to paraphrase Terence Mann in “Field of Dreams” ("Parking Lot of Dreams?"), MATS has been the one constant through all the years. An army of trucks has rolled by. The roads have been dug up, widened, repaved and done all over again. But MATS has reminded us of where we’ve been, that trucking once was good and it could be again.

Are you gonna come?

Until next time, be safe, make money and get home often.