Tim Gibson's Truck Models

Saginaw, Michigan's Tim Gibson is a lifelong truck enthusiast, retired truck driver, and as you're about to see, a very accomplished truck modeler. Let's just jump right in...

This GMC Crackerbox was built to represent an actual unit used by Andersen Sand & Gravel of Saginaw. Tim's father drove the real tractor, which pulled a custom-built gravel train. The tractor itself is unique in that it has no "sidesaddle" fuel tanks- the U-shaped tank behind the cab is a combination fuel/hydraulic tank. Tim suspects that the tank and trailers were fabricated by Andersen themselves. The cab itself was a resin sleeper cab done by Hendrix, which Tim cut down to a day cab.

This very nice Ford C-600 is basically box-stock, aside from the custom printed markings for Quality Door and Lumber Company.

Two Reo mixers- one is done as an Andersen unit, the other as a Saginaw Rock Products mixer. These two companies were fierce competitors "back in the day". While Andersen is long gone, Saginaw Rock Products is still booming right along, although most of their current fleet consists of front-discharge mixers.

Tim extensively reworked the AMT Peterbilt 352, which represents a privately-owned unit on lease to Bulk Transport Co. The sleeper cab was cut down to a 73" BBC unit, and the Pete was thoroughly "dechromed"... the real tractor has very little brightwork (down to a painted air horn and natural aluminum bumper), so the model follows suit. Not shown are the scratch-built gravel trailers Tim made to go with it.

The James House #85 Diamond Reo is a heavily reworked AMT kit, while the trailers, again, were built from scratch by Tim. Essexville, MI-based James House & Sons was part of Rex Transportation, and they built their own trailers in house (no pun intended). If you have ever seen the 1989 film "Collision Course" with Pat Morita and Jay Leno, a James House rig can be seen in one of the chase scenes. Rex (and James House) are long gone now. Legend has it one of the House trucks was in a traffic accident, and a resulting lawsuit bankrupted the company. At any rate, almost all of the James House/Rex tractors and trailers ended up at a northern Michigan salvage yard. A few made it out of the yard- they were sold whole and pressed back into service. Sadly, #85 was not one of the lucky ones...

The Diamond Reo Raider is one of my all-time favorite heavy trucks, especially the set-back axle version. Tim's model is a perfect example of a Raider Michian Special from the era. Those stripes were factory issue- typically Raider stripes went from body color to white in a fad pattern, as seen here in red.

Tim's Autocar depicts a typical Michigan Gravel Train. This time Tim went with the MPC Gravel Trailer kit, rather than making his own trailers. Well... to to a gravel train you need three MPC kits, but that's beside the point! I always loved the pit-fender Autocars, and Tim nailed the look on this one.

As you may have noticed in the background, Tim has tons of other cool models, but these are the highlights.