O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicle Jan 23

the open side bottle truck would be nice!

Fred Dole

I'd like to see more 40's, 50's, and 60's era 1:43 trucks.  Nothing specific really:  dump trucks, box trucks, fire trucks, tractor trailers, you name it.  I can find a lot of these in a:50, which works for some but not for me.  I have had a hard time finding nice ones and they cost a pretty penny when I do.

Just not pickup trucks - it seems like we have plenty of those...

It strikes me this would not be that difficult to make, starting from a normal panel van.  I think I have one or two, if not, I can certainly buy one.  I'm going to give it a shot.

I want to see some 1940 and prior school buses.  The only one available (still?) was

on a Model T Ford chassis, and not the late '30's into '40's Chevrolets that my uncle

used to drive and I used to ride.  (I never saw a Reo schoolbus, as above,  as a kid, just Chevies) I want to kitbash one into a railbus.  Tootsietoy made something similar but is hard to find.  I want to see MORE pickups: Chevrolets and GMC's until 1940, Plymouths, Dodges, IH, Willys, Terraplane, etc. ...yes, Matchbox has made a few.

Pontiac produced light vans and panel trucks 1926-53.   There ARE Fords galore. Matchbox made one (only) prewar International large truck, but the roads were full of 'em when I was a kid. This IH grille was on everything from pickups to semis, 1937-1940.  As for larger trucks, prior to 1940, there are a great many marques the general public have never heard of.  Among my truck library there is one on beer trucks, showing many brands with that open-sided body as on the Diamond T above.  My brewery needs a couple of those open-side bottle trucks.

I'd like to see a pickup truck with the tool kit bodies utility companies had in the late '40s and '50s.  Ladders carried on racks between the two side boxes.

Bell telephone companies had their logo on the doors, utility companies had corporate colors.  Each room size layout could absorb several of these with no problem whatsoever.

Lineman's truck on our layout, I think 1:34 with tool boxes and ladder

racks added.

John in Lansing, Ill

This is the utility body used by Rochester Telephone until the early '60s

.

The local Gas & Electric Co used a utility body with forward crew cab similar to this. Some independent utility contractors used them as well.

Yeah, same here. I'd love to model a school bus and have figures of my parents as little kids on it as I model the year they would have each been in 2nd grade...

As for people wanting postwar and 50s cars, most modelers want steam running alongside diesels, so that means early 50s at best.

Keep in mind, most cars are not going to be new in any timeframe. I'm wanting to see some more pre-war stuff that isn't just high-end autos. They would be seen on the roads into the 60s...

I will second the early 50s school bus.  I would also like to see early 50s tractor trailers and vans in 1/43 - 1/50 as well.

I would like to have an early 1950's med. duty International flat bed like my dad drove for the lumber yard. Sometimes in the summer he would stop by the house and take me with him on a delivery. I sat on a milk crate.

AZGARY

I'd like to see a 1934 Diamond T Texaco "Doodlebug" tanker in 1/43 or 1/48. It's been made in 1/32 and HO, but not 0 scale.

That Texaco tanker is cool, but I'd mostly like to see normal vehicles you'd encounter in real life. The problem with using diecast vehicles, they seem to most often made the unusual and expensive car types. So few 'average' cars out there.

Yes, only Rextoy (pre-war and gone) and Brooklin (expensive) make or made cars seen on the  street in Podunk.  Every now and then something

will pop up from somebody else besides convertibles, classics, or limousines, but all too infrequently.  I have seen that Texaco tanker in the odd scale but I model primarily Conoco and regional oil co. territory.  That tanker is kinda like those cars with the horseheads used by that New England soft drink company?, and is strictly an advertising gimmick.  I was thinking that Texaco truck was on a Dodge chassis, but

I just went through five truck books and I can't quickly verify that.  I thought it was

mid to late thirties, and there are Texaco tankers shown, and streamlined, but Dodges with the Airflow front ends.

Whoops....it is Diamond T, with the emblem on it, in the photo above...overlooked

that.  I was thinking it was Dodge.

Colorado:

There was a very similar Texaco tanker with a Dodge Airflow cab. I don't know if Chrysler actually made regular production Airflow trucks or if this was a one-off for Texaco, but your memory is not wrong about there being a 1930's Dodge Texaco tanker. It's also available as a 1/32 toy bank. 

Let's go Chevy this week.

All my recent die cast purchases goes great this week's theme.  

Ertl 1950 Chevy garbage truck.

Road Champs Good Humor truck.

Corgi Mack B-61.

Southwest:  I have a book on Dodge that addresses 1914-1975, and it says the Airflow

tank trucks, by Dodge, were built from Dec. 1934 until Feb. 1940, so they were a

production truck, and not just limited to tank trucks.  Two Schlitz beer trucks are shown and the book states that there were other bodies mounted on the chassis, but

that how many were built is not known, except that there were 40 built from Dec. 1937

to Feb. 1940.  Another book shows a streamline, but NOT Airflow, 1940 Dodge built for

Miller's High Life beer, and two exotic looking Labatt's (Canadian) beer trucks on White

chassis.  There are shown several different Canadian breweries' very streamlined late

1930's trucks.  Also shown is a Texaco tank truck similar to the Diamond T, but with a

different front end on a GMC chassis.

Richard,

All of those look like good choices to me.

Jeff C

'“What 1/43 would like to see made?” Particularly in medium to heavy commercial vehicle makes and bodies.'

Good question, Richard! I'd like to see more "everyday" trucks from the '60s-'70s. The Ford Louisville conventionals and International Transtar cabovers were very common into the '80s, and a surprising number of Mack R-series conventionals are still around today, at least in the northeast.

Thanks for the info. Could you post the titles of the books? They sound pretty interesting. If you have time, it would be great if you could scan and post some of the more interesting images. After reading your post, I went Google surfing and found some good stuff, including an article on a Milwaukee truck builder that made some of the coolest looking streamlined trucks. H.Barkow built streamlined delivery vans for Miller Beer, Oscar Meyer, and others. Also, Texaco got streamlined or semi-streamlined tankers from a variety of builders, including Diamond T, Dodge, GMC, and White. 

I would really like to see somebody make a 1/43 (or 1/48) model of Barkow's streamlined delivery van! The Miller and Oscar Meyer vans were designed by Brooks Stevens, who was also responsible for the Milwaukee Road's original Olympian Hiawatha and Skytop observation car and for the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.

Here are some photos.

 The streamlined Labatt's truck. This is available in 1/43 but it is very, very expensive!

Miller delivery truck by Barkow

Oscar Meyer by Barkow. 

Rainier Beer, builder unknown. I threw this in because of the Rainier Beer woodside reefer made by Atlas for Petersen. 

Airflows for Schlitz by Barkow

Design for Schlitz. Never built. 

1938 GMC for Texaco

1941 GMC for Texaco

Two views of a Texaco truck by White. Looks like the same body as the GMC

Lee :

I figured if anybody would modify a panel truck to one of these, It would be you. I wish more 1/43 was made from plastic, they would be easier to modify.

I remember the trucks being anything but new and shiny, old, worn, even rusty, like the veggies, straight from the farm, with dirt on them.  There was one that parked at the corner of E 27 S and S 3300 E streets in Salt Lake City way back in the mid '50s.  we'd walk to it ever Saturday morning.  That was the very edge of town then, sort of undeveloped, although googlemaps shows it with hamburger joints and everything today.  

Lee,

Really nice! I especially like the Produce Truck!

Thanks.  I was fairly easy to make.  The scale that hung off the back of them was difficult, tiny as it was.  Not a great picture here but the best I have . . . 

The early Reo school bus brings back memories. The school body was built on a Reo cab and chassis. That was a Penn Yan body. The company was in upstate New York and also made boats. I lived in the Bronx N Y and went to day camp on them. The bus I went on was a 1934 International owned by Parochial Bus Company also from the Bronx. They had many buses like that. Mostly Brockway but, A few Macks and Internationals. They also had some ex Greyhounds. They were very big and I did not get to ride them much. I assume that the picture is from a catalog. If that is a model I would be interested in finding out. I would search one out and paint it Blue And White.

Nate

Lee

Nice job on that produce vendor's truck!

SW:  Here is a list of the few books I have on vintage trucks:

"This Was Trucking", Robert F. Karolevitz, Superior Pub. Co.

"Pictorial History of American Trucks", Niels Jansen, Bay View Books, London

"American Beer Trucks", Donald F. Wood, MBI Pub. Co., (Crestline)

"Standard Catalog of American Light Duty Trucks, 2nd Edition", John S. Gunnell, Editor,

   Krause Publications (this is an 800 page "phone book" of photos and detailed

   fine print descriptions of best known and surviving marques, but not of the

   hundreds of vanished makes)

"Beverage Trucks, 1910-1975 Photo Archives", Donald F. Wood, Iconograflix

"The Dodge Story", Thomas A McPherson, Crestline Publishing

    (Crestline has done a lot of books on automotive history for various brands)

Thanks, I just ordered the beer truck book from Amazon. 

Thanks, Colorado Hirailer: that is a good list of books.  I'd like to get a few.

Yes Lee, Great Produce Truck. Different and great. Thanks.