Owensville, Indiana-based custom truck shop Davis Bros. Designs went all-in on the build of a brand-new 2024 Peterbilt 389 for the Mid-America Trucking Show‘s Big Rig Build-Off back in March.
Davis Bros. was one of four shops invited to compete in the invitation-only event, part of the annual PKY Truck Beauty Championship in Louisville, Kentucky, attendant to the bigger show.
When all was said and done, three shops were able to get a truck to the show, and Davis Bros.’ “Lessons Learned” 389 came out on top, beating out a a 1980 Kenworth K100 restomod from Johnson Hill Customs and a totally custom 1996 Peterbilt 379 from Dickerson Custom Trucks.
“We kind of stepped it up,” said Davis Bros. owner Brian Davis, anticipated tough competition after the invite. The goal: A unit that stands head and shoulders above the shop’s typical custom builds — impressive in their own right, no doubt.
Owensville, Indiana-based custom truck shop Davis Bros. Designs went all-in on the build of a brand-new 2024 Peterbilt 389 for the Mid-America Trucking Show‘s Big Rig Build-Off back in March.
Davis Bros. was one of four shops invited to compete in the invitation-only event, part of the annual PKY Truck Beauty Championship in Louisville, Kentucky, attendant to the bigger show.
When all was said and done, three shops were able to get a truck to the show, and Davis Bros.’ “Lessons Learned” 389 came out on top, beating out a a 1980 Kenworth K100 restomod from Johnson Hill Customs and a totally custom 1996 Peterbilt 379 from Dickerson Custom Trucks.
“We kind of stepped it up,” said Davis Bros. owner Brian Davis, anticipated tough competition after the invite. The goal: A unit that stands head and shoulders above the shop’s typical custom builds — impressive in their own right, no doubt.
The rig’s paint job is probably the first thing to grab your attention, and Davis said he had the color scheme in mind with a stripe layout, “going for kind of an older-school type thing.” The shop went with an overlaid or over-under stripe style, something Davis said Peterbilt offered back in the 1960s and ’70s.
The paint scheme features seven total colors, “any painter’s nightmare,” Davis noted. “It was a lot of tape work, lots of tape work, and of course we painted right through the jambs and all the way to the back sides of our jambs and all that in the truck, so it was a long process to paint it and get … the lines perfect and crisp and, you know, absolutely no bleeds anywhere and that type of thing. Going to the Build-Off, it’s got to be right.”
The truck came off the assembly line and to the Davis Bros. shop in November as a white cab with a red frame. All the paint work was done in-house by painter Brooks Martin.
Brian Davis noted that with a typical build the shop does, they usually “don’t go crazy on our engine bays. We’ll chrome them up a little bit and get them clean and paint a few parts, but we don’t get in-depth and pull our engines and that type of thing.”
That wouldn’t be the case with the “Lessons Learned” 389.
“We upped our game a little bit on the engine bay a little more than what we probably would have” typically, Davis said. The 565-hp Cummins X15 and 18-speed was fully painted and chromed.
The story’s similar in the cab. The bed was removed and a couch added instead. The overall theme: Brian Davis channeled his background playing in a band to evoke an old music venue/bar. He added repurposed Fender tweed amps as covers for the speakers in the doors.
The sleeper is totally redesigned to have the look and feel of a bar, complete with neon lights and much more.
Davis said he found a company that makes products to recondition Fender tweed amps, so they bought everything from them, made the amps to fit the areas they need and cover the speaker grills.
“I played in a band for over 25 years, so I really have always liked the stereos and that type of thing,” Davis said. “With the theme of the old bar inside, I thought, ‘Man you know it’d be kind of cool to to make it look like there’s some old amps sitting around, you know, when you’re in there sitting on the couch.'”
With the help of JL Audio, the truck also has a “very large stereo system inside and outside,” Davis noted. The tractor features eight 12W7 subwoofers in the bunk and 18 7.7-inch speakers in the cab. A custom trailer from Mac Trailers built to tour with the truck this year also features 16 13W7 subwoofers and 28 8.8-inch marine speakers, mounted thanks to custom compartments build into the trailer by Mac. “It does sound off,” Davis said.
The trailer’s subwoofers and speakers can be seen here on the underside of the flatbed.
[Related: MATS ‘Build-Off’: Dickerson Custom Trucks’ ’96 379 boasts Cat dozer power]
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