Rob Laurent first became interested in trucks when he was employed rebuilding truck suspensions in Pedder Street, Albion, Brisbane.
Collins And Davey were on the corner and he looked at the trucks they sold going to and from work. Leader were part of the range they sold.
In later years Rob worked for Brambles Containers which were the starting company of CHEP pallets. With everything of Brambles in the same yard his interest in trucks was made more prominent.
His increased interest in Leader came about when Rob realised they were Australian made, and in all places, Toowoomba.
Rob Laurent had written various other books from family history to fiction before the Leader project started.
There were two years of research involved in putting the book together. One interview lead to another simply by people saying “You need to talk to so and so”... Along with hunting down photos for each model in their working guise.
The cab over Leaders were modelled off a Mack cab over and the bonneted Leaders were modelled off a Nissan.
Cyril Anderson, the creator of Leader trucks, was importing Macks out of America before the Leader came about.
Cyril Andersons right hand man, Frank Lamb was also involved with importing KATO and TADONO cranes out of Japan, as well as the early importing of Mazda to Australia. They had the initial rights of NITTO air fittings for Australia.
The initial print run for Rob Laurent's Leader Truck book was 3000.
Things were slow selling until Big Rigs did a feature on the book and then it took off with sales ultimately exceeding initial expectations.
There has been a print rerun of 500 done by Geoff Close and they have been a good seller for him.
Story by Darren Lebsanft
Desert Dog has managed to secure a small number of Rob Laurent's LEADER TRUCKS books and these are available on the website.
Also written by Rob Laurent:
- Southern Cross Engines
- Werribee Farm