People in western Montana who want to catch a glimpse of a killer whale in the wild could have to make an 11-hour trek to the Washington coast — or they might hope for a sighting closer to home.
That’s because every once in a while, Bennetto Fernandez unleashes on the roads in the Missoula area “Killatrina,” the giant orca that he’s spent the past five years painstakingly building on the bed of an Isuzu box truck. And whenever he lets the whale out, out come the smartphones.
“I get to see how much people love it,” Fernandez said of those rare outings in the orca truck.
Those outings will ideally become less rare in the near future, as Fernandez is busy building a kitchen inside the belly of “Killatrina” with the goal of someday soon selling ice cream treats from the window that pops out from the passenger side.
Further down the road, he’d like to tour the orca around to schools in the Missoula area so he can educate and inspire children.
But from the day he began this whale of a project, Fernandez has always had a more straightforward mission: To promote joy and happiness. Based on the reactions of people who see “Killatrina” out and about or on social media, it seems he’s well on his way.
“My goal is inspiring people and empowering people to do their best and do the things they want to do,” Fernandez said.
A Car That’s A Whale
What inspired Fernandez to build a whale atop a truck bed that appears poised to chomp down on the cab of a cherry-topped truck.
“It’s really hard, I think, to explain where ideas come from,” Fernandez said. “I remember just thinking, ‘I want a car that’s a whale.’”
The idea for the orca truck might also be traced back to when Fernandez was in grade school, and he carved a whale atop a car that went on to win third place in a local pinewood derby.
Even though he grew up in the Missoula area, nestled within a landlocked state, Fernandez has long been fascinated by and had a love for orcas because they’re a dominant force in oceans, while being very social and family-oriented creatures.
It was during those early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when much of humanity’s socializing ground to a halt, that Fernandez got to work on what he envisioned as “an antidepressant” for the people of Missoula and Montana and beyond.
At the time, Fernandez was working at a job building fences — a job he knew he didn’t want to do for the long haul — and in his spare time, he began shopping for large trucks on Facebook Marketplace that could be used as a food truck.
“I didn’t want to build something for no reason,” he said. “I wanted it to be an asset to myself, and really an asset to humanity in general.”
Making ‘Killatrina’
By mid-2020, armed with a vision and that Isuzu truck, it was time to get to work. Whereas some people might not make it this far, what with a lack of experience vital for constructing an orca truck, that didn’t stop Fernandez.
Since childhood, he said, he’s been the type who loves to create and would often construct the sorts of toys he would see in the store, like making toy airplanes out of foam egg cartons.
He brought that same mindset to “Killatrina.”
“I wanted this to happen and I kind of resolved that it was going to happen,” Fernandez said. “It’s not super difficult to learn virtually anything if you want to; if you have your heart in the right place and the will to do something, you can do it.”
Thus commenced learning things like Blender, a free 3D computer graphics software tool, and watching videos on YouTube to teach himself how to weld or work with fiberglass. For the past year, Fernandez has been documenting, albeit retrospectively, the process of building the whale on his Instagram account, @montana_orca_project.
Though he’s enlisted the help of friends and family for various parts of the construction process, he’s mostly chased this (black and) white whale alone in his driveway. “It was important enough for me to make it happen.”
‘An Out There Project’
But like anyone who has chased an ambitious dream — or “an out there project,” as Fernandez describes his — there have been brief periods of doubt. A couple years ago, he decided it was time to sell “Killatrina” and that posting drew the attention of naysayers and supporters alike, ultimately leading him on a roadtrip to California.
Driving the truck proved uneventful, as the modifications have only added maybe a couple hundred extra pounds, but seeing the reaction of people along the way proved that the behemoth beast was too good of an idea to give up on.
So, he returned to Montana with fresh conviction to make the whale ice cream truck a reality.
“Virtually everybody I’ve talked to is like, ‘This is amazing, I can’t wait for this to be open,’” Fernandez said.
Getting The Whale Over The Hump
Still, this passion project has proven to be both timely and costly. Without tallying up all the receipts he has tucked away in envelopes, Fernandez estimated that he’s spent between $25,000 and $30,000 on the whale, not to mention devoting about $150,000 worth of his time in labor.
Fernandez is working as a server at a restaurant and said nearly every extra penny he has goes into this project and seeing it through.
But he doesn’t have enough money to hire help, nor does he want to go into debt, so last year he decided to take a slightly different approach, reasoning that: “If people want to see it happen and want to see it around, they’ll be more than happy to help me out.”
In July, Fernandez launched a GoFundMe fundraiser with the goal of raising $20,000 so he can bring the whale over the hump and to the streets of Missoula sooner. He also put a flyer in the front window of the truck explaining his project to people who are curious.
Though the fundraiser hasn’t seen a huge wave of money come his way, he still plans to see the project through. In addition to building out the kitchen, Fernandez plans to add flippers to the outside, which will “add a lot of character,” he said.
Inspiring Others
There are other little details that likewise give “Killatrina” some character, including the textured roof of the whale’s mouth and a realistic looking uvula that’s intentionally not realistic, since orcas don’t have them. “It was an artistic touch and a little fun thing,” Fernandez said.
While it’s easy to be critical of his own work, there are times when the creator is struck by his creation. “It’s not perfect, it definitely has a lot of flaws, but I just love the smile, the wide-open mouth and all the teeth in there.”
Though Fernandez has fielded far fewer “Moby Dick” jokes than one might imagine — people mostly make references to the movie “Free Willy” or Shamu, a killer whale that became a main attraction at SeaWorld — he does tinker with chasing other whale-related projects in the future. He was joking recently, he said, about building a whale-boating car to trail behind the “Killatrina,” with his brother at the wheel dressed as a sailor. “It’s definitely a fun idea.”
And on the flyer in the truck’s window, he teases the possibility of building a narwhal truck down the road. “Anytime you create something it’s really hard not to think, ‘I want to do it again but use what I learned to make it that much better.’”
Fun ideas aside, Fernandez hopes that something as simple as bringing an orca truck to the community will have a bigger impact.
“Nothing brings me more joy than being able to encourage a person or help a person reach their potential and do what they’re capable of and what they're meant for,” he said. “Seeing what I’ve done hopefully will inspire people in lots of different ways.”
