Cabover extra in ‘Real Steel’ film to be auctioned Dec. 8

Joyce Smith, co-owner of Ron Smith Trucking of Breckenridge, Mich., shuttered the company about a year ago, a month after her husband passed away. The small fleet’s equipment will be auctioned off on Dec. 8 at their place in nearby Wheeler.

Among the 17 tractors on offer (among livestock, flatbed and other trailers as well as other equipment) is the pictured 1994 Freightliner cabover, which holds the distinction of not only being a fine-looking, long-running piece of iron from a long-lived livestock hauling operation — it was an extra in the opening scene of Real Steel, this summer’s blockbuster about a boxer (Hugh Jackman) turned robot-fight promoter.

To film the scene, says Smith, they took “five or our trailers and three of our tractors” to Detroit, where the film was made. In the scene in the finished film, she adds, “the trucks are set up as an arena around some wrestling robots.”

Among 16 other tractors in the auction are two the couple acquired new and never got the opportunity to letter and use, she says, “1998 and 1999 brand-new — those will be in the auction…”

Full details about the auction are available via this page on the Sykora Auctions site.

And: a big thanks from the folks here at Overdrive for the tip, Joyce. “We have hauled livestock for over 35 years and have read your magazine just as long,” she says.