Thanks for all the replies. It was Ed Steinberg that I had in the back of my mind, but for some reason I thought he had quite a few articles. But that's okay, mystery solved! My memory has really been getting bad...
I have seen most of the other authors mentioned, all had great articles. Truck kitbashing has slowly become my favorite part of the hobby.
Thanks!
I remember more recent articles by Mont Switzer.
There have also been some in the NMRA Magazine and RMC. The new trains.com format does not seem to include the all-magazine index. In general the new format strikes me as confused and messy but usually I can tell where stuff would be if I ponied up the $ to be a member, but I cannot see where the index is or would be. I cannot even find tne printable annual indexes that supposedly are online and as a subscriber I used to get "free" with the March issue.
Anyway by laboriously looking at old paper indexes I came up with some articles.
Yes Ed Steinberg in 1978 February page 84 might be the article you are thinking of. He used to write lots of good construction articles for MR
More recently, the November 1990 issue had two good articles on trucks: Bob Smaus on Southern Pacific trailers page 116, and Art Curren kitbashing the Athearn 24' trailer page 120
June 1992 page 94, Mike Nesbitt on flatbeds
May 1993 page 72 Roger Kujawa on UPS trailers (as piggyback loads)
December 1993 page 130 several different truck modeling projects from Lucien WIss and Bernard Frontanau.
August 2001 page 60 Jeff Wilson on 1950s piggyback trailers
August 2004 page 24 Lionel Strang had a truck project in his regular column (which reminds me that there have probably been some truck detailing projects in the Step By Step series that I did not catch).
Nov. 2008 p 66 Vic Roseman on pickup trucks. Good article
Feb. 2012 p. 64 Alan Skinner on delivery trucks
and lastly three great articles, somewhat related, by Mont Switzer
April 2013 page 54 on 1950s Mack trucks and Fruehauf trailer
July 2018 page 38 on 1950s GMC truck
Jan. 2019 page 65 on 1950s tandem van
There is also mention of a fairly recent Kalmbach book, Building Vehicles
Hope this helps
Dave Nelson
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I read Model Railroader thoroughly in the 1980s, and I do not remember a frequently featured author on this subject.
Hopefully someone else can help.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
There was a fellow that had many articles in MR in the 80s (maybe 70s too) that did a lot of truck kitbashing and modifying. I have vague recollections of articles about making the Athearn Freightliner a day cab, using some Roco MiniTanks as kitbash fodder, etc. He had quite a few articles but his name escapes me. I'd like to find those articles on the digital archive, but am having some difficulties searching. Does anyone recall these articles and the author's name?
Steve W