My friend's dad worked @ carrier and was able to retire before the company moved to the Carolinas in the mid 80's.
My dad was a traveling man and so he had a new car every two years and so he'd always have big motors and all the bells and whistles. Go out and rip out anything that would restrict air flow and have twice pipes underneath. Of course in the 80's cars just sucked and so he was getting V-6's and he'd break'm in to run and they did but as the world changed so did the need for him and his skills. Had some good times riding in the right seat with him, and planned on going into trucking once I go out of the Navy because I could keep that left door closed and go like hell. DOT rules changed so much and in many ways they needed to restrict these OTR drivers because many were/ARE not disiplined to follow the rules and stay off the uppers and many people have gotten killed.
I was up on the road a while back running right seat with our company, needed to hot shot some parts and we had a leased Freight shaker and it had a big 500 Detriot with a 10 speed automatic trans and it would run over some moutains and just hum all day. We'd ride and guide like being in a Lincoln and the A/C would freeze the ever loving off ya and it was like 110 plus out in the desert! I brought my down sleeping bag to stay warm in the sleeper while I was off duty. With the hours we could drive it took us 4.5 days to get out to Seal Beach and we were going hard keeping the doors closed and outside of fuel we didn't need anything else.
Since we were doing a special run we had certain paper work and stuff so we didn't need to roll over the scales and the DOT left us alone. But a lot f those big trucks that come south over the border are POS and the DOT have to shut them down because they are hazards. there are plenty of POS on the roads in the US as well and if you knew they were next to you on say I-97 or 695 you'd be getting past them and not riding next to them. If you never seen a big truck tire let loose you need to see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXEQ7SaWgw8 throwing that gator out on the road with the debris....