Truck Kenworth W900L Driving Experiences

First produced in 1961 to succeed their original 900 series of trucks in production since 1956, if you ask most fans of heavyweight American trucks what’s the first thing they think of when you say the word ‘truck’, then the Kenworth W900L is probably not too wild an approximation.

In the last six decades, these heavy duty goods transporters have been as common a sight on the United States’ many long and dusty highways as you could hope to find, the sort of thing only seen (on these shores, in any case) in major motion pictures or television series, which explains why our range of driving experiences in them on TrackDays have become a steadily growing favourite.

Manufactured at Kenworth’s production plant in Renton, Washington, the W900L has become their flagship model, and as you might well expect is incredibly powerful, running on a massive Inline 6-cylinder engine that roars out 625 bhp, with top speeds of around 85 mph.

Fans of the James Bond movies will instantly recognise the Kenworth W900L truck from its appearance in the 1989 instalment of the films, Licence to Kill, when it was used in the memorable sequence where Bond (played by Timothy Dalton) intercepted that film’s villain Franz Sanchez.

Kenworth subsequently produced a ‘limited edition’ variant package for the W900L, which had the same paintwork as the model featured in the film, as well as gold-plated Kenworth badging, and ‘007’ emblems used throughout the interior and exterior features.