Herein, perhaps a little diversion for this fine Thursday, or something to add to a wish list, as it were. Longtime owner-operator Steve Bixler — lately off the over-the-road runs, partly stemming from complications he shared more than a year ago in this linked edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast — got an early Christmas gift he shared a couple pictures of with me yesterday.
![Yep, that’s a quarter standing next to the unit.](https://img.overdriveonline.com/files/base/randallreilly/all/image/2020/07/ovd.steve-bixler-model-lady-in-red-2020-07-16-13-48.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max&q=70&w=400)
If the truck looks familiar, that’s Steve and Doris Bixler’s long-running 1989 Freightliner Cabover, the Lady in Red, as a scale model that Bixler’s sons had made for him with hopes of giving it to him at Christmas. When the expert hand who custom-crafted the replica got the job done — complete, Bixler says, with taped-off, hand-painted car on the cab, among other detail work — they upgraded the mini-rig to a birthday present. Bixler’s birthday, though, isn’t until September.
They “then decided to give it to me early so it wouldn’t get broken before I got it,” he said with a laugh. The builder, he said, “started with a frame, a cab and bare trailer and made everything else by hand or with a 3-D printer.”
And in case you’re wondering …
![… I’m pretty sure the rig does’t have a working engine, but at least it’s serviceable in this version, as in the real one.](https://img.overdriveonline.com/files/base/randallreilly/all/image/2020/07/ovd.steve-bixler-model-lady-in-red-cab-up-2020-07-16-13-57.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max&q=70&w=400)
At the time of this writing, Bixler was working on hunting down potential referrals for us to the builder — your next question, I’m sure. Stay tuned.