ABOUT Jim and Allan

The Historic Vehicles website is the brainchild of Jim Gibson and Allan Whiting. Initially the brand, features and restoration content was historic trucks, but subsequent entries included historic cars and motorcycles.

In the 1960s, without knowing each other, both blokes cut their teeth in the road transport business: Jim as a mechanic and then young truck driver and Allan in freight sales. Both men then moved into truck operations roles and ended those career moves as operations managers for large truck fleets.

Again without knowing each other, Jim and Allan scored senior appointments with Australian-market truck importers and manufacturers. Jim stayed in the truck corporate world for some years, while Allan moved into 4WD and road transport journalism. At that point their paths crossed, with Allan reporting on the trucks that Jim was marketing.

A firm friendship developed.

Seeing how much fun Allan was having in the writing and photography game, Jim moved that way as well. By the 1990s, both blokes had senior editorial jobs and Allan then started his own truck buyers’ guide magazine, TruckSearch, while also serving as long-term technical editor of 4×4 Australia Magazine.

With the advent of the internet, Allan saw the writing on the wall for magazines, sold off TruckSearch and launched the Outback Travel Australia website in 2009.

Jim’s magazine career climaxed with the editor’s role at Truckin’ Life Magazine, but, after he’d raised its profile way beyond former levels, the mag fell into post-internet financial doldrums and Jim went freelancing, writing mainly about older cars and trucks for specialist magazines.

Red-wine-induced conversations in that post-magazine era led to the idea of the Historic Vehicles website that launched in 2020.

We hope you enjoy it!