AUTOMOBILES: New Trucks

Like passenger-car manufacturers, many truck makers change models each year, ballyhoo the new ones as the best ever. But truck makers are smaller, more numerous, less cooperative than auto makers. For seven years organizers have been trying to get them together in one big show, never succeeded. Last week, of some 75 makers, eight displayed their 1941 models at Manhattan’s National Automobile Show, another eight at the New York World’s Fair Maritime Building, others elsewhere.

Show or no show, truck manufacturers were in the midst of a record year last week. Thanks to U. S. Army orders and a boomlet in commercial buying, 1940 truck sales will be $620,000,000 (wholesale value), up 17% from 1939 and comfortably over the previous peak—1929’s $596,000,000.

Most outstanding thing about the new trucks is the trend toward massive, high-priced models. In 1929 commercial cars averaged $720 to dealers. By 1933, with the proportion of light trucks increasing, it was $536. Even in lush 1937, trucks averaged $605. But they will average $710 or more this year. Reason: the capital-goods industries, revived by defense orders, are again buying heavy-duty trucks. Army buying also lifts the price average: most military models are huge four-or six-wheel drive affairs, a size proved useful by the Nazis in France. Thus, although 80% of unit truck sales will be (as usual) under two-ton capacity, the new models run to gigantism, increased horsepower, more wheels, more Diesels. They are also streamlined, glitter with more than usual chromium and nickel.

For years Dieselsters have talked in vain about revolutionizing the trucking industry. Now 1941 finds them closer to it than before. To truck buyers, Diesel’s higher initial cost, weight and other shortcomings long offset fuel savings. But the depression made them more economy-minded, started a trend. Five years ago truck makers sold Diesel-powered vehicles on special order. This year many of them have regular Diesel lines. According to estimates of Diesel Progress, some 8,000 Diesel trucks and busses now roll on U. S. streets and highways, more than five times the 1935 total. With rising sales of big trucks (best Diesel field) truckmen expect to deliver another 5-6,000 Diesel units in the coming twelve months.

Unlike the passenger-car mass market, truck buyers demand thousands of special models for special uses. Hence truck makers offer an endless variety of body and chassis styles, a wide price range. This year’s prices range from $435 for an 1,100-pound Crosley to $18,400 for a 52,000-pound, six-wheel-drive Marmon-Harrington, even more for 70,000-pounders.

Some leading ’41s:

For seven years, Chevrolet has been the world’s No. 1 truck maker, making one-third of all trucks in the U. S. Specializing in fast, light units, Chevrolet has 22 models this year, from, low, rakish, one-half-ton delivery wagons to one-and-a-half-ton cab-over-engine, two-speed rear-axle models. Concerned for the safety and comfort of truck drivers, this year’s Chevvies have bigger, softer seats, dome lights, all-steel cabs, handier levers.

No. 2 truck maker is Ford, accounting for 30% of total sales in the last seven years. This year’s buyers can choose from 42 body and chassis types, four engines: a 30-h.p. four-cylinder job, an 85-h.p. V8, a 95-h.p. V-8 or a Hercules Diesel running higher. The front ends have wide, upright grilles over the radiator, long horizontal louvers on the side. Mechanical selling points: long-wearing worm-and-roller steering gear, better springs, more extensive use of light, strong alloy steels.

Husky, sombre Sydney George McAllister’s giant International Harvester Co., No. 1 producer of farm implements, also makes the International truck, No. 3 in sales (10 to 15% of the market). Internationals range from panel delivery units to 15-ton, six-wheel (four-wheel rear drive), Diesel-powered giants. More stylish than many, Internationals have shiny horizontal grilles with the upper part running back to the cab.

Many ’41 Dodge trucks have a large chromium cross on the radiators. Parking lights and “wavelets” in the fenders are luxuries borrowed from the passenger car.

Biggest models are powered by Chrysler’s own Diesels: light types have synchro-shift transmissions. For over-the-road truckers there is a “sleeper” job with small Pullmanish berths behind the seat. Trucks of Dodge’s cousin, Plymouth, are commercial versions of the passenger car.

In the last five years sales of GMC trucks have risen from 2.2 to 7.2% of the total market, now hold fifth place. Like its corporate relative, Chevrolet, GMC this year caters to the man behind the wheel; also carries streamlining to new extremes. Models range from one-half-ton (competing directly with Chevy) to huge, squashed-nosed, 20-ton heavy-duty jobs.

Mack is the No. 1 manufacturer of trucks over four-and-a-half tons’ rating. Its ’41s range from one to 45 tons, include gasoline or Diesel power, shaft or chain drive, four or six wheels. In Mack’s line are powerful six-wheel-drive Army trucks, oil tankers, dumps, busses, fire engines. A special job for strip coal mining is longer than a freight car, carries 45 tons, is too wide (13 feet) for highways, costs about $30,000.

Diamond Ts for ’41 comprise more than 40 models, including big six-wheeled Diesels. Diamond T got its first boost in World War I, is now busy on $19,000,000 (3,000 trucks) of Army orders—nearly twice its total 1939 sales.

White likes its squarish radiator, has kept it on the new trucks but dressed them up with bullet-shaped headlights, rounded cab corners, wide bumpers with a “V” in the middle. In 1939 it successfully invaded the light field with the “White Horse” delivery. Last year’s sales included big orders from the Allies, totaled $23,512,000. This year U. S. Army orders alone have amounted to over $45,000,000. Piloted by ex-sprinter, laborer, salesman Robert Fager Black, White’s 1940 profits will be the largest since 1929.

Among other makers of big trucks are Autocar, whose 1940 bookings already total $22,000,000, double 1939 sales. Brockway’s new models include long, 55-passenger school busses, even longer tank trucks, impressive six-wheelers. New Federals include a square, unstreamlined ¾-ton unit for city deliveries, others up to 20 tons. The radiators on the new Four Wheel Drive hang so far over the front-wheels they appear dangerously near nosing-over. Another giant, Mormon-Harrington, specializes in lumber, petroleum and construction hauling. The revitalized Reo runs from one-and-a-half-ton general-purpose trucks to 34-ton tractor-trailer combinations. Well streamlined, Reo pushed a knifelike hood ahead of the front wheels to achieve bigger loads on the same wheelbase.

Among light trucks, Divco-Twin, unknown until three or four years ago, is breaking records with slow, low-powered, boxlike models for milkmen, bakery routes. This year’s Divco line includes a refrigerated truck. Willys ’41s look like converted passenger models, as do Hudson and Buick. Studebaker pioneered cab-over-engine design in 1937. It sold thousands of trucks to the Allies last winter. Tailing the procession are the buglike, tiny Crosley panel deliveries and pickups. Chief selling point: cent-a-mile operation.