The opportunities that present themselves to our lives can come in strange ways. Often, they are brought to us by friends or family, other times they come as a product of hard work, and sometimes they are presented to us simply because of who we know. But occasionally, they come to us by mere accident. Such is the case for David Viss (62) of D. Viss Cattle in Buckeye, AZ, the owner of the unique 1953 Kenworth “Bullnose” seen on our cover and centerfold this month (and these pages). Over the course of his life, he has found himself “accidentally” getting into businesses he never intended to – but he is glad these awesome accidents happened!
Immigrating to the United States in 1902 from Holland, David’s great grandparents came here with the last name of Vis, but because there was already someone else here with that name, they added an extra “s” and made it Viss. David’s grandfather Cornelius was seven years old when the family came to America. Later, after marrying his wife Lucille, Cornelius began milking cows and hauling hay in California. Back then, he hauled “bottom bales” – the leftovers in the fields that other haulers didn’t take – to many of the dairies in Southern California.
The next generation, David’s father Neil, was born in Chino in 1932. Neil later married his wife Gertrude, David’s mom, and the two ended up having nine children, with David being the second to youngest. Back then, big families were common, especially with farmers, because, as David put it, “They needed cheap labor!” In California, Neil had a cow trimming and clipping business that serviced the local dairies, but he eventually saved enough money to move to Glendale, AZ in 1957 and lease his own dairy. With only about 160 cows, this first dairy was not very large, but a few years later, in 1967, the family moved to Tolleson, AZ and built a new dairy that had twice the number of cows (about 350). Called Neil Viss Dairy, this operation would eventually grow to over 1,400 cows.
Born in Glendale, AZ in 1963 but raised in Tolleson, David, along with all his siblings, learned to work hard at an early age. Getting up every day at about 3:00 AM or earlier, the kids all headed out to help with the cleaning and feeding of the cows and worked for four hours before heading inside for breakfast and to get ready for school. After school, it was back outside to help for another four hours. Their mom Gertrude cooked and cleaned for eleven people each and every day, which was a monumental task, but it was just “what had to be done” as she said.
When moving to Tolleson, Jake DeWitt was hired to move their cows, and he had some nice trucks. David and one of his brothers would go with him sometimes and ride in the truck, which they remember as being a Kenworth “Bullnose” (although it was later realized that it was most likely a Peterbilt Bubblenose). Either way, the brothers fell in love with “Bullnose” Kenworths and would later buy the one seen here to fulfill their lifelong dream of owning one. David loved seeing the hay trucks come in and out of the dairy, and remembers thinking, “I’m going to do that one day.” And he did!!
During his sophomore year of high school, David decided he couldn’t teach those teachers of his anything else, so he left school and went to work. His first job was driving a 1968 Pete with a 300 Cummins and a 4+4 two-stick transmission, hauling “green chop” feed for Gary and Steve Van Hofwegen. A year later, at just 17 years old, he started hauling hay for Ray Vandenberg with a 1968 International truck and trailer and then a cabover Peterbilt truck and trailer, both equipped with two-stick transmissions.
Hauling for Ray for about five years, in the summer of 1985, things started to get slow, and someone asked David if he could get them a load of hay, so he did. From there, it started to snowball, and David found himself “accidentally” in the hay buying, selling and trucking business. Running as D&J Viss Hay, over the next seven or eight years, he built that company up to seven trucks, 14 sets of hay trailers, and two hay squeezes. Then, at 29 years old, he decided to sell it all and move to Chelsea, Oklahoma, and start his own dairy there.
Moving to Oklahoma in 1992, David used the proceeds from the sale of his hay trucking business as seed money to start his new dairy and formed D. Viss Cattle. Growing to 200 cows, which in that area at the time was a big dairy, this venture did not last long. Unfortunately, his dad became ill and needed help running his two dairies, so David shipped all his cows to his dad’s dairy, closed his operation in Oklahoma, and moved back to Arizona in 1994. Helping his father for a couple years, he eventually walked away and let one of his brothers take over the business. David’s father passed away the next year in 1997 at just 65 years old.
Around that time, after building some pens at a local dairy, someone said to David, “I didn’t know you did that,” to which David replied, “I didn’t know I did either!” Again, one thing led to another, and before he knew it, he “accidentally” got into the dairy building business. Over the years, he has built nine complete dairies, from start to finish, and over 300 barns in California and Arizona. Peaking at 47 employees, this construction business is still in operation, but it was downsized significantly following the 2008 housing crash and subsequent recession. These days, it only has five employees, that mostly do repairs and small jobs.
While the construction business was still booming, there became a need for a big truck to move their heavy equipment around, so David bought a 1999 Peterbilt 379 in 2003, which he still has today. At one point, the company had six trucks to haul materials and equipment, but all those trucks are gone now, except for that 1999 Peterbilt 379, which he has a driver in today, hauling hay. Eventually, some farmers he used to work for asked if he could move some hay to an exporter, and not long after that, he “accidentally” found himself brokering hay.
Hay exporting is huge these days – much of the hay we grow here in the United States gets “pressed” into smaller bales and shipped via containers to other countries. Like Chino in California, which was once the dairy capital of the world until urban sprawl forced them out, Buckeye in Arizona was like that, too. At one time, there were a lot of dairies there, but most of them have either sold out or moved to larger facilities in eastern Arizona or New Mexico. There is still a lot of hay and alfalfa grown in the area, but most of it is sold and shipped abroad now.
Today, David’s son Cayde (34) runs the hay business, operating as Viss Hay Co., and has ten subhaulers, including his dad and his dad’s other truck (the Peterbilt 379) with a driver in it. Most of the hay they haul these days is destined for an exporter that ships it out of the country. So, how did this amazing “Bullnose” find its way into the fleet? David’s brother Randy found it in Texas, so he bought it, thinking he could pull some local loads with it and use it at the RV park he owns. But it didn’t take him long to figure out it wasn’t easy to climb in or out of, so he sold it to his brother, David. That was eight years ago.
When David got the 1953 Kenworth KCD 825C “Bullnose” truck, it was painted dark green, had a worn-out old Big Cam Cummins hooked to a 10-speed in it, and had been fitted to a modern (1995) Freightliner conventional chassis. David’s dream was to have an old truck, but for it to drive like a new truck, and this KW seemed to be the perfect candidate to make that happen. But it was all cobbled together, and it needed a lot of work to get the truck where David wanted it to be. After pondering the KW project for about two years, David finally sent it to his friend Garrett Boyle of Boyle Restoration and Fabrication in Scottsdale, AZ.
Tasked with the daunting job of replacing the engine, making the cab tilt, and getting the rig roadworthy, Garrett worked on the old truck part-time for a few years. These “Bullnose” KWs were built from 1948 to 1958, and they did not have a tilting cab. Access to the engine required removing the doghouse inside the cab and two small openings in the front of the truck, which was not convenient at all. David wanted the truck to be easy to service and easy to find parts for, so that became the main focus of the build.
The 670-hp Cummins N14 engine came from a donor 9670 International cabover, which also provided most of the hydraulics and hinges for the tilting cab conversion. This was a big job. Since the chassis was from a conventional truck, the steering system was goofy, so the first thing he had to do was get all the steering geometry and angles correct. From there, that determined where the driver-side hinge and tilt cylinder could be placed, which then determined where they could put the radiator, which then determined where the passenger-side hinge and tilt cylinder could be installed. Garrett also had to rebuild the entire floor of the cab, which was made of plywood covered with sheets of aluminum, to give the structure more rigidity for tilting.
Once all that work was done, the shift tower for the 13-speed transmission was set in place, along with a second stick to operate the splitter, then all the wiring and plumbing was updated so if David ever had a problem, he wouldn’t be looking for 70 year old parts. Garrett moved the bed back 7” to give David more leg room and make it feel more like a conventional, and then he lowered the driver seat 4” by placing it in a recessed pocket built into the floor. The cab was completely covered with four layers of insulation, the gauges and switches were replaced with newer ones from a 1996 W900, and multiple A/C units were added to keep David comfortable during those hot Arizona summers. After all that, the interior was redone by a local guy.
The truck only has a 262” wheelbase, but it looks a lot longer than that. Garrett installed a modified 8’ Merritt drom behind the cab, which can hold six extra big bales, allowing David to haul 54 big bales of hay. Hooked to his set of Western doubles and fully loaded with hay, the seemingly long combination still fits on a 90’ scale. Garrett also added air-ride, modified a visor made for a K100 Kenworth, and built the entire 6” intake system, which was customized to accommodate the tilting cab. This truck originally came with single round headlights, but at some point, they were changed to dual squares, which Garrett replaced with double rounds. It also came with Freightliner steps, so Garrett replaced them with modified grab bars from a 362 Pete COE and then custom built the lower steps.
Once Garrett got the rig roadworthy, David started running it. He was just supposed to run it for a little while to get the bugs out, but he liked it so much, he drove it for a couple years, putting 60,000 miles on it. Once all the gremlins were fixed, it was time to make it look pretty. Taking it to Rod Pickett at Pickett Custom Trucks (PCT) right there in Buckeye, the truck spent about a year there, before it was ready to make its debut at Rod’s “Diesels in the Desert” truck show in March of 2025, which is where we found it. While the truck was at PCT, they were in the middle of moving into a new shop, so it took them a little longer than expected to finish the Kenworth – but it was worth the wait.
While at PCT, the truck got a new 18” Valley Chrome bumper, some new body panels, new 7” Dynaflex pipes with Pickett elbows and “Chino” tips, they rebuilt the entire grill, added bus glass, and replaced all the cab lights with new ones from Grand General with glass lenses. They also added Hadley horns to the roof, new Kenworth fuel tanks, Hogebuilt stainless quarter fenders, and built a small, custom deck plate, mounted behind the drom. The headlight bulbs were replaced with LEDs, blue and amber underglow lights were installed, and the truck was painted Dark Charcoal Metallic with a small Bright Blue Sapphire stripe. To finish it off, some tasteful
pinstriping was done by Ron Hernandez.
This truck was supposed to be for David to semi-retire and slow down, but that hasn’t really happened. David has been a hard worker since he was 16 years old, and he really doesn’t know how to slow down (he might even be afraid to). Since putting the truck into regular service back in January (2025), he has put over 15,000 miles on it, and since he mostly runs locally, that is more than it sounds. Working the truck about four days a week on average, it has proven to be what it was built to be – a cool old classic cabover that is quiet, comfortable, dependable, and easy to work on – everything he wanted it to be. The one thing he did not build it to be was a show pony, but now that he has went to a couple events with his family and really enjoyed them, he is “accidentally” getting into truck shows!
And speaking of family, David and his wife Mia, who have been married for 14 years, have five mostly grown kids. David had three boys with his first wife – Slayde (39), Cayde (34), and another son named Wayde who passed away in 2022 at the age of 35. David and Mia have a daughter together named Victoria (20) that helps in the office and is currently studying to be a registered nurse, with her eventual goal of being a dermatologist. Mia has two other kids from a previous relationship, and both work in the family business – Ruben (34) is an owner operator that hauls hay for them, and Vanessa (33) helps them weigh the trucks in and out.
Slayde, David’s oldest son, is on his own, and he feeds 3,000-4,000 heifers, unloads grain at rail sites, has a custom harvesting business that chops green feed and corn and bales hay, and has five trucks that haul commodities. We shot the pictures of David’s Kenworth in an alfalfa field next to the feed lot Slayde runs in Buckeye. Slayde is married to Lacey, and they have three young children. As mentioned before, Cayde runs the hay business, so, theoretically, David can pick and choose his loads and work as often as he wants to, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Cayde is married to Kaitlyn, and they have four young children.
Family is very important to David, and it was a huge loss when he lost his mom three years ago. She was one day from her 91st birthday, and had she lived that one more day, she would have been 91 years old and had 91 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Wow, that’s a big family! While at the “Diesels in the Desert” show in Arizona back in March 2025, I had the privilege of snapping a cool photo that included 16 members of David’s family who were all at the truck show to support him – and to have some fun hanging out together.
To avoid some of the intense heat Arizona has, once the temperature hits 112, David and Mia take an extended four or five week vacation to Hawaii each year. David has a Hawaiian “Hula Girl” stuck atop his dash to help remind him daily of the good times that await. They also have a nice RV and enjoy traveling whenever possible, and a cool sand car, fitted with an LS3 engine, they like to take out to the sand dunes. For many years, David was part of an off-road racing team (Flying Dutchman Racing) and was the navigator during races like the Baja 1000, the San Felipe 250, the Primm Mint 400, the Laughlin Desert Classic, and the Parker 400. These days, he no longer rides in the car but instead runs the chase vehicle and helps pit the truck.
We enjoyed spending the day with David and his family, at the feed lot in Buckeye, even though it was super windy. Standing out there in the alfalfa field, as the dust was flying, made things a little more difficult, but we pressed on and got the job done (like we always do). Sometimes we plan our lives and things just go according to our plans, but that has not been the case for David Viss. His life has been a string of awesome accidents that led him to where he is today – and he wouldn’t want it any other way!