BC retiree crafts Peterbilt tow truck replicas

Vancouver, British Columbia — April 15, 2015 — A Langley man has painstakingly created detailed models of the Peterbilt rotator tow truck, using 400 separate pieces, most of which are wood. The Langley Advance reports that it took Wilf Driedger, a retired realtor and experienced carpenter, around seven weeks to build the first replica. Driedger has been building models in his spare time for 16 years. His latest project was inspired by the Peterbilt rotator truck featured on the TV hit Highway Thru Hell. “I thought, ‘That’s a really nice rig,’” Driedger told the Advance. “And then, once you start building it you realize how much technical stuff is on there. It’s amazing.” The model is almost completely crafted by hand, with the exclusion of the tires, which were purchased from Toys and Joys in Lyden, Washington. Constructed mostly of one-inch cut maple and beech pieces Driedger sourced from Riemer Hardwoods, the fully rotating and extending truck features acrylic and Tremclad paint, hooks created with coat hanger pieces, and pen spring rotators. Twenty-one pieces make up the top of the rotator. Owners of the original life-size model, based at Abbotsford’s Aggressive Auto Towing, received one of the completed replicas from Driedger on April 13. A photo of the truck can be found on their Facebook page.