Stuart Geltmaker, a retired heavy equipment operator out of Floyds Knobs, Indiana, has always had a thing for big trucks, and cabovers in particular.
Regular Overdrive readers will be familiar with Geltmaker, as one of his custom builds — his “Black Widow” 1986 GMC General — was featured here a year ago.
Nicknamed “Big Red,” the truck features V8 power with a Cat 3408, paired with a 15-speed and 3.90 rears. He showed the truck at the 2026 Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky.
[Related: ‘Black Widow’ ’86 GMC General: ‘Poor man’s Peterbilt’ for owner]
Geltmaker bought the truck in 1998 and got to work on building it the way he wanted it to look.
“Over the course of the years, I just started putting on lights and trinkets, if you will. Different things,” he said. “And you see what it is now. And it’s a good old truck. I have no problems out of it.”
The rig features a high-roof Aerodyne sleeper that Geltmaker said gained popularity in the late-‘70s and into the ‘80s.
“Everybody started building … high sleepers,” he said. “Freightliner had one, you know, and all of them. But Kenworth, in my opinion, had the best one with the interior design, the button tuck and everything.”
Geltmaker added chrome button covers on that button tuck interior, dual Eldorado air ride seats and more.
Geltmaker said not everybody who sees his work on the truck is a fan “with all the bling and everything. Some guys might say, ‘Well, that’s a little too much.’ But, you know, to each his own.”
Some of that bling includes the front mudflaps and license plate hanger off the bumper.
When Geltmaker and his son, Kevin, got the truck in Kevin’s barn, they gave it a fresh coat of paint, including the frame, and took all of the wheels off and added 10 aluminum wheels around the truck, “which is good for polishing,” he noted.
He added “big stacks, you know, the twin breather stacks,” and plenty other “bling” when looking at the back of the cab.
At 80 years old, Geltmaker said it’s not as easy to get in and out of the rig as it was when be bought it, “but I still get up the ladder.”
[Related: ‘Dark Horse’ Peterbilt 589 boasts intricate detail, ‘ghost stripe’]
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