Within minutes of meeting Jake Thomson, his qualities are glaringly obvious. He’s an open, personable young man, and as you dig deeper it’s clear he is naturally skilled and multi-talented, but as we found in talking to him, he is very quietly spoken and very unassuming.

Brought up on a farm by enthusiastic and proud parents you really can only be hard- working and down to earth.

As a little kid of six, he poured over Truckin’ Life and at that tender age, and for no particular reason, he became bitten by the Peterbilt bug.

What drew him to that particular breed? “Oh, the bonnet, the sides, the look, I like the shape of them better and they’ve got the V8 Cats and all that sort of stuff in them,” Jake says.

At age nine, Truckin’ Life published one of his drawings of a Peterbilt that any keen artist would be proud to call his own. In August 2006 Truckin’ Life ran a two page spread of Jake’s truck models which included a few Peterbilts, some Kenworths and a Western Star, as our then Model of the Month winner. In April that year Jake’s truck models had swept all before them at the Central Victorian NNL Automotive Model Show held at Kilmore; he took out first, second and an encouragement award in the intermediate category with 15 of his then model truck fleet of 26, entered in the competition.

Read Jake's passion for Truckin Life in our January issue of Truckin' Life.