Peterbilt 379

Peterbilt 379 Class 8 truck, taken in California

The 379 was Peterbilt's flagship truck from 1987 until the 2007 model year maintaining the nameplate's signature long-nose styling coupled with a rugged edged yet refined profile. Available in standard (119" BBC) and long hood (127" BBC) lengths, the 379 is the last conventional over-the-road truck available with an aluminum hood.

Variations

Replacing the "359" in 1987, it remained in production until March 2007 with the last 1000 379s called the "Legacy Class 379."

Common Powerplants

Throughout production, the 379 came loaded with some of the most powerful inline 6-cylinder turbo-diesel engines offered in on-highway vehicles. These engines included the Caterpillar C-15, Caterpillar 3406 (both mechanically and later electronically injected), Cummins N-14, the "big cam" Cummins, and many other high-torque workhorse engines. Many Peterbilt 379's were capable of attaining in excess of 1 million miles before major engine attention and a 379 loaded with a Caterpillar C-15 boasted about 4-9 miles per gallon depending on road conditions, severity of the load, and the driver.

In popular media

Optimus Prime's alternate mode in the Transformers film series is a Model-379.^{[citation needed]}

Autobot leader Optimus Prime's alternate mode for all three films is a Peterbilt Model-379 truck. Three modified 379s were used interchangeably. There was much controversy over this in the Transformers fan community because Optimus Prime is almost always portrayed in the various cartoon series as a flat-nose cab over semi-trailer truck (or later as a fire engine); his movie incarnation would be the second with an extended nose conventional cab. The filmmakers have said that, ignoring the fan-termed "mass shifting" associated with the series, Optimus's final official height of 32 ft (almost 10m) in robot mode would not have been possible to allow for all of the mechanics of the CGI model if they had gone with a cab-over, which would have dropped him instead to a smaller 20 ft (almost 7m).^{[citation needed]}

Other popular culture

• A Peterbilt 379 appeared in the 2000 version of Gone in 60 Seconds^{[citation needed]}
• A Peterbilt 379 appeared in the movie Black Dog (1998)^{[citation needed]}
• A close relative of the Peterbilt 379, the Kenworth W900, appeared extensively in the 1977 film "Smokey and the Bandit" driven by the country guitarist and actor, Jerry Reed.