VIDEO: Classic Trucking Documentary – American Giants

This retrospective on the trucking industry has 90s written all over it. Funky graphics, strange animated sequences, out-dated police uniforms and non-ironic mustaches has to mean 1990s Highway Life. We have to admit we got a kick out of some of the truck footage.

American Giants is an episode produced by British media about the trucking industry across the world. It was narrated by recording legend John Peel, who was a popular radio host on BBC Radio 1.

Peel’s Radio 1 shows were notable for the regular “Peel sessions”, which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist live in the BBC studios, and which often provided the first major national coverage to bands that later would achieve great fame. He has been called “The Most Important Man in Music” by many, which may be an exaggeration, but not by much. He broke many many classic artists during his tenure at the microphone.

American Giants is the last sequence of the six part BBC televised series “Classic Trucks.” He and his BBC crew made the journey to America for the series because frankly, no other country on the planet has an industry of the size, scope and uniqueness of trucking. He mostly covers OTR trucking, but does delve into other types of trucking to give a larger scope of it all.

Peel basically had no agenda for his television production, he merely wanted his European audiences to know more about the daily trials and work ethic of the American truck driver. Do you think he got it right?

Source
Jono Barspeed