Williamsburg, Iowa-based Dylan McCrabb has been driving trucks for 13 years total, 12 of those as an owner-operator.
He comes from a long line of truckers, with family on both his mother’s side and his father’s side being truck drivers. His step-grandparents, grandfathers on both sides of the family, his father and his uncles all drove or still drive today.
Dylan McCrabb with his 2024 Peterbilt 389X
After that, he “decided to go out on my own” with “a lot of help from a man named Bob Trimpe, and here we are today,” he said.
For the last nine years, McCrabb has been hauling pigs leased to Dan O’Brien Trucking out of Belle Plaine, Iowa. His daily driver in that work is a 2022 Peterbilt 389 painted silver with a purple frame. He also owns a 1993 Peterbilt 362 cabover that he plans to restore down the line.
At the invitation-only 2024 Peterbilt Pride & Class Parade last month, McCrabb showed off his newest truck -- one that he plans to keep as a show truck for a while -- a 2024 Peterbilt 389X.
His 389X is No. 626 of the 1,389 built by Peterbilt in the last year of the iconic 389 model before it was replaced with the new 589 model this year.
At the time of the Peterbilt event in October, McCrabb said the truck had just over 5,000 miles on the odometer and that he planned to keep it sitting in the shop for a while and continue driving his 2022 389 workhorse. As shown in the video up top, it’s hard to blame him for not wanting to put the beauty to work after everything he and a crew of 12 others put into it.
While the 389X model in and of itself is a special-edition model, McCrabb and company took that to another level when he took possession of the unit last November.
Like the 2022 model he runs, most of the trucks McCrabb has owned are silver with purple frames, but because the 389X comes outfitted with polished aluminum fenders, he went with purple for the whole cab so the fenders really stand out.
Pieces of the Cummins X15 under the hood are also painted purple to match the exterior.
The team extended that purple paint to the frame. They also took off the 7-inch Dynaflex stacks, moved the fuel tanks and DEF tank forward and added 6-inch stacks instead. They also swapped the polished breathers that come on the 389X model for painted “to give it that more retro look,” he said.
That old-school theme continued throughout the build, as McCrabb and crew wanted to bring different pieces of Peterbilt history into the truck. That includes 379-style headlights, a 359-style interior done by Spare Time Fab, 351-inspired window visors and more.
With that interior, the dash panels, carpet and cabinets are still factory, but just about everything else was built by Spare Time Fab to look more like a Peterbilt 359 inside.
While the truck doesn’t officially have a nickname, McCrabb said “Mistaken Identity” might fit, given “this is not what I normally do.”
“I’m not a big light person,” he added, “and I’ve always wanted to do the double bubble [cab lights]. A buddy of mine, Josh Silver with Silver Customs, he talked me into doing those finally. And so, it’d be 'Mistaken Identity' if there was a name for it.”
[Related: Wisconsin small fleet's latest full-custom 2024 389 build]
Find plenty more views of the rig in the video up top, and for more videos and custom-equipment features delivered to your email inbox, subscribe to Overdrive's weekly Custom Rigs newsletter via this link.
Dylan McCrabb: So my name's Dylan McCrabb. I'm based out of Williamsburg, Iowa, and I haul for Dan O'Brien Trucking out of Belle Plaine, Iowa, hauling pigs.
So this truck is a 2024 Peterbilt 389X. It's number 626 of the 1,389 of them. It took a lot of work, a lot of help, a lot of people helped. We pretty much did everything in shop. Andy Arp, he was a big, big contributor to this project, along with 12 other people.
We tore the entire interior out of it. We repainted the frame rails, painted just parts of the engine, nothing major. A lot of love and effort went into this and a lot of struggles. This is actually called Spec Master Blue, but it's just a purple color. Purple has been almost on every one of my trucks I've ever owned. My grandfather's favorite truck, my grandpa Terry, and it's always been my favorite color that way. So, we found this color when we went with this because I was afraid with the silver it would hide the polished aluminum fenders too much. So that's why we went with purple. And most of my trucks are silver with a purple frame.
OK, so the 389X package, the most appearance wise anyways, the biggest difference is these come with Dynaflex 7-inch pipes. So the fuel tanks were slid back farther to accommodate the elbow. So we took all the 7-inch pipes off and Andy moved up the fuel tanks and the DEF tank, and then my brother moved up the air dryer from underneath. So we moved all that forward, put on the 6-inch pipes, changed the mirror brackets, changed the air cleaners because they come with Donaldson polished air cleaners. So we took those off and put on painted air cans to give it that more retro look, I guess that old-school look.
Changed out the drop panels, like I said, repainted the frame. We tried to accommodate all the Peterbilt models, so even like the little window visor, we got the inspiration from a 351. It's got a 359 interior in it. The headlights are from a 379 and the double bubble lights are obviously you can get those whenever, but they're kind of known for being on 379s and 359s. So that kind of tied everything in and just tried to go with that old-school theme a little bit to tie everything in. That seems to be the popular theme anyways right now is the old school. So that's kind what we went for.
So the interior, we ripped everything out and had Randy at Spare Time Fab and his crew did a whole 359 interior for me. So the only thing factory inside the interior anymore is pretty much the dash, the dash panels, the carpet and the closet doors. Everything else has been made by Randy. Like I said, a lot of struggles.
It's technically not on the road. I've only done about a week's worth of work for it. It's got 5,000 miles on it, rolled over 5,000 coming down here. But yeah, it came in Cedar Rapids in November and then we just kind of tore it all apart to get ready for Louisville, and so it just basically sits in the shop collecting dust, unfortunately. It's going to stay a show truck for a while.
