The Dodge Big Horn’s legendary status is even bigger than the actual truck. It was Dodge’s last attempt at building a big Class 8 conventional tractor, and only 261 were built between 1973 and 1975, when Dodge abandoned the big truck market. And remarkably, some 105-110 of them are still accounted for, which has to be some kind of record for a vintage truck.
Here’s a couple more:
This very impressive West Coast rig was even updated with rectangular headlights and was still plying the highways well into the ’80s or longer. Keep in mind that the actual cab dates back to 1955, when the wrap-around windshield was added. And that cab was just an update of one that goes back to the first post-war Dodge cab of 1948. So yes, it looks a bit small in relation to the rest of the truck, which undoubtedly is one of its unique features, and has the effect of making the truck look that much larger than it really is.
The standard engine in these was a Cummins 250, but a wide range of other Cummins, all the way to a 350 hp NCT was also available, as well as the DD 8-71, either in Normal or Turbocharged form.
Stout rigs!
That’s an interesting load of cars with the Lincoln, Corsica, lumina and gosh is that a supercharged Cougar? This could be 1989 or even later.
I was also thinking that’s an interesting load. I’d take that Cougar or the Trans Am just behind it in a heartbeat!
Great eye picking out the T/A. Is that another Pontiac beneath it? That cladding….
It’s a 1991 XR7, so 5.0
What a terrible time to make a play for the commercial truck market – 1974-75 was a bad recession so lots of trucking companies and owner-operators likely cut way back on new-truck orders. It would be interesting to see the sales breakdown by year.
Wait – I just checked a only 10 of those were from 1973. US sales were 91 for both 1974 and 75, with the rest being Canadian sales that were better in 75 (43) than 74 (25). With one unit sold in Mexico in 75 that made 1975 the highest sales year of the three.
Sourcing body parts (like a windshield) would have to be a pain in the a$$.
But that is a fairly handsome truck.
…and trucks only make money when they are moving. Why anyone would buy a truck that could be sidelined for a broken windshield is beyond me. It’s a great looking truck but I’d have gone with more conventional offerings of the day.
There would be no problem buying a windshield for a 15 year old vehicle design.
The Town Wagon was in production with this windshield til 1966.
I also seem to recall these same cabs were used on FWD trucks for a short time too.
I agree it was a very handsome truck. The strong LTL ques worked very well on that old cab styling imho. I think the windshields are still readily available in the aftermarket due to the many years they were in production ion, did bough I have not actively sought one out.
The same windshield was used on many Dodge trucks down to pickups, back to 1955. So there are a lot around. Front parts – hood could be difficult.
In 1972-3 Chrysler had 4 generations of conventional truck cab in production going back more than 30 years;
– New-for-’72 cab on the D/W-300 light duties.
– 1961 cab still in use for another year or so on the D500-800.
– 1955 cab (itself a heavy update around the hard points set in ’48) for the heavy low-cab-forwards and the Big Horn
– 1939(!) cab for the WM300 Power Wagon still in production until ’78 but export-only after 1968.
It makes me wonder why the Big Horn wasn’t designed around the ’72 cab since presumably they planned to stay in the market for keeps.
Dodge did at least use the ’72 and up cab for the medium duty line, as seen here with this D-800. It’s not like they sold a bunch of them.
Incidentally, I’ve seen one of these trucks within the past few weeks.
They sold a lot of those D series medium duty trucks in Mexico. They were in production at least until 1992.
Two years on the ’61 cab. The new medium duties with the ’72 cab bowed in ’74. When I was in school in New Jersey in the mid 80’s PSE&G, the big electric utility in the state, had a fleet of them – with a few of their predecessors soldiering on as well.
The small cab does have the effect of throwing off the scale of the rest of it, in isolation making everything else look so much larger! Interesting rig, can’t recall having seen one but never really thought about that the name Big Horn, being a trim level on RAM trucks, had a pre-history with Dodge.
This has made me nostalgic for the pre-SUV era.
Cougar, Corsica, Firebird. I’m one of the oddballs who liked that gen of Lumina as well. If I had to pick I’d choose the Cougar.
But what is that car on the bottom rear behind the Firebird? My beat guess is a Corolla wagon, but there’s not a lot to go by.
I have no opinion on the semi because theyve never been my thing, other than respect for a machine which does its job well.
I’m not doubting the Leghorn production numbers, but I sure would’ve bet higher.
Maybe they seem more common because one recalls almost every one they ever saw?
That’s gotta be an unintentional waste of valuable gray matter? Lol
I’ll confirm these trucks look enormous in person; here’s the one I photographed at MoparFest 2010 in Ontario (rest of the pics and writeup here).
Dodge’s biggest problem with heavy trucks was a lack of a strong dealer network. The trucks themselves were competitive, at the time they got out of the business they were building gas and diesel short conventionals (C series), large cabovers (LN/LV series), and the Bighorn. Dodge had very few dedicated truck dealerships, and many were ‘factory’ stores. The big Dodges were built in a dedicated heavy truck plant next to their Warren light truck plant, and were largely hand assembled on a ‘station’ type assembly line. nlpnt comment on the number of truck cabs Chrysler was producing at the time, and that was indeed a problem. So much so that Chrysler eventually farmed out production of the C series/Bighorn cab to Checker Motors. The end came in March of 1975, Chrysler gave the reason for dropping the heavy trucks as the expenses of meeting FMVSS 121, the first truck and bus anti-lock brake requirement. Ironically 121 was amended shortly thereafter, but I think Chrysler was loosing too much money on those trucks at the time to continue marketing them. One interesting footnote to the Dodge heavy truck story was that a couple of versions of the tandem axle diesel C series continued in limited production until around 1979 for military and export sale.
Someone on in the ATHS had a one off factory short nose version of one for sale recently. Really neat trucks overall.
As they say in Texas, All hood(hat) and no cab(cattle).
Building these trucks makes no sense with the numbers that were built, somebodies projections were way off.
In the future someone will be doing a similar article on the Cat truck that was built for a few years, 2011-2016, another wacko decision. Cat bails out of the on-highway engine market but comes out with an on-highway truck using there own automatic trans but uses rebadged engines from Navistar. Another wildly optimistic projection that missed the target, probably didn’t even hit the wall the target was mounted on.
With only 261 of these rigs produced that Ram hood ornament has to be among the rarest ever. I don’t think they used it on anything else.
My Uncle drove one of the earlier ones 1949 52 Long Horns Toronto Montreal run. I followed his progression years later. Would like to find a photo of the early ones. He drove for Husband Transport out of Toronto.