Back in 1999, you’d see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace as the highest-grossing movie, Cher’s ‘Believe’ topping the music charts, all while a new heavy hauler was getting its start at Syncrude.

Fast forward 21 years and Haul Truck 17-100 is getting its chance to be in the limelight as it’s set a world record by being the first of its kind to surpass 150,000 operating hours.

Craig Coolen, Syncrude’s Manager – Mine Mobile Maintenance, tells Mix News the vehicle was originally only supposed to have an operating life of around 72,000 hours.

“Once the truck was up and running we really wanted to unleash its full potential… so yes, the easy route would have been to retire it, however, we see a lot of value in continuing to extend life.”

Over its 21-years-of-operations, the one million pound truck has taken over 157,000 trips and hauled over 55 million tons of materials. Despite already becoming the longest-lasting haul truck in the global field, it still has trips left in it.

“We do have an end of life for this machine and we’ll continue to work through those plans as things continue to evolve,” added Coolen.

As for hitting the milestone, Coolen says the credit deserves to go to his entire maintenance team.

The job they’ve done is leading to several other trucks also getting close to hitting 150,000 operating hours.

“When we brought these trucks in they came in batches, so there will be a few trucks that’ll be hitting that milestone in short order.”