By Amanda O’Rourke
NORTHUMBERLAND — What started as a kind gesture for some unpaid mechanic work led to a decades-long hobby of collecting those favorite Christmas keepsakes: Hess trucks.
“I did garage work for people. I didn’t charge them and it wasn’t that much,” said collector Wayne Killian, of Northumberland. “It was repaying a favor.”
In return, Killian said, a customer would bring him that year’s Hess truck as a thank-you. Some even brought him boxes of Hess trucks as a thank-you.
That all started more than 30 years ago. Now, packed in boxes in the loft of Killian’s garage are more than 300 trucks, most still in their original boxes.
Among his collection, Killian counts the Hess fire truck, emergency truck, patrol car, cruiser, monster truck and 18-wheeler, as well as combination pieces like the helicopter and motorcycle, truck and racers, truck and helicopter, sport utility vehicle and motorcycle, even the truck with a space shuttle and satellite.
He also has several Hess toy truck coin banks.
Though it wasn’t Killian who originally sought out the toys, it is understandable why others in his life would see them as the perfect gift.
“I was raised in a garage,” said Killian, who grew up in West Nanticoke before marrying wife, Dorris, moving to Northumberland and opening his own business, Killian’s Garage, in 1957.
“I just like cars,” Killian said.
Little toy cars, and big cars. And apparently, Killian has a habit of keeping his prized possessions, boxed up, so to say.
Locked up in his Rope Walk Alley garage — and secured by an alarm system — are several trucks and cars, the most unique a 1999 Plymouth Prowler, candy apple red and shiny enough to see your reflection in.
Killian reveals it from underneath its car cover with a boy-like grin. The sports car has only 3,100 miles on it.
Now 79 years old, Killian said his collecting days are behind him; he doesn’t want to burden his children with his large collection after he’s gone — though he insists he’ll live to be 100.
He now says he’s ready to start selling off the collection. On the potential auction block are not only dozens of Hess trucks, but toy trucks and sets by Citgo, Texaco, Sunoco and BP.
“At my age, well, I didn’t get any (trucks) this year,” Killian said of his collection. “That’s the start of quitting.”
