William Oliver found a splendid example of one of my favorite trucks. I found one some ten years ago, and the full write-up is here, but this one has a fab two-tone paint job, in colors that rather scream “1948”. These are big heavy-duty pickups; more like medium trucks with a pickup bed, and it sits tall and proud.
I won’t do the full story here, but REO stands for Ransom E. Olds, the father of the Oldsmobile. REO was his second act, but it didn’t go as well as the first, which is not uncommon.
REO claimed that they first used the term “Speed Wagon” in 1915, which referred to lighter trucks with pneumatic tires that allowed significantly higher speeds than the lumbering early trucks with their solid rubber tires. “Higher speeds” was maybe around 25-30 mph, compared to 10-15. It became a generic name for some time, as presumably Reo didn’t have a trademark on it. But only Reo put it on their trucks, as far as I know.
Under the “alligator hood”, which flips up in one piece, sits a Gold Crown 245 Cubic inch (4 liter) side-valve six, rated at 89 hp @3100 rpm. Top speed: probably around 45-50, in part because of the low axle gearing. “Speed” is a relative term.
Ask me which of these two trucks I’d take if I was offered either one.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1949 REO Speedwagon Pickup Truck – The Hunting Trophy
The Rock band REO Speedwagon was named after this vehicle
I always felt a little smug back in the 70s because I always knew that there was a cool truck before there was a band that took the name.
I agree, those colors are very 1940s. If I owned this one, it would be tempting to make a bumper sticker that says “My other car is a John Deere” 🙂
I tried to hide the fact that I really like the colors of the REO, but I can’t fight this feeling anymore.
I’ll be here all week, folks, and don’t forget to tip your waiters generously…
There’s a second truck in that picture? I see something white, but it’s generous to call it a “Truck” 🙂
As far as I know, the term speed wagon was used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to a type of horse-drawn racing cart, similar to a sulky.
I don’t know if speed wagon began to refer to commercial vehicles before Reo’s use of the name, but the term may have already been considered generic to some extent by that time – If, in fact Reo didn’t trademark the term, that may be part of the reason.
In an ad in the post I linked to (too big to attach), Reo claims that it was the first to use the name on a truck, and that other trucks had started to use the name since that time.
Kind of like Suburban – which was a model used by a number of manufacturers who probably thought it could be used like ‘station wagon’, until GM trademarked it.
Interesting that Schwinn had it as a trademark in 1970.
Beautiful truck!
That is a real beauty. The Speed Wagon has always been on of the best looking trucks in my opinion. The colour scheme is certainly eye catching.
Should be room enough to fit an overdrive and make something still useful today.
This truck is gwahgeous. First one I’ve seen, and now it’s got a high spot on my why-can’t-we-have-things-that-look-like-this list.
Agreed 1000%
It’s pretty cool that the band’s name wasn’t lost on this truck’s owner. If I’m not mistaken, that is the band’s logo on the truck’s mud flaps, although the original truck company logo looked very similar to it from what I can see.
OMG an actual pickup truck thats kinda rare now, nobody builds them anymore.
What a sweet truck! While I would NEVER do it to a truck this nice, I CAN fantasize about a turbo diesel Cummins 6 in it!
I am generally not a pickup guy, but I love this. I had an impression that REO were from the 20s and 30s, so it is interesting to see they lasted much longer. I see it has Ontario plates, so maybe I will be lucky enough to see it in person. I can’t quite make out the writing on the side to see where it is from.
This truck is sooo ballsy that it can wear the colors that it does and still look tougher than any new truck painted black. Fact!
I love the little round REO cab. It was often mistaken for the White WA/WB/WC cab, particularly after White bought REO and rebadged some REO models as the White 2000 series. Another byproduct of the White buy-out was some of the larger REO’s became available with the Autocar cab Somewhere along the line the REO cab got a curved one-piece windshield but that was about the only update that it ever received. When White merged Diamond T with REO the REO cab continued on some Diamond Reo trucks. I have yet to find out exactly when the REO cab ended production but I believe it was some years after White spun Diamond Reo off in 1971. 1948 was close to the end for the ‘Gold Crown’ flatheads, the ‘Gold Comet’ OHV 6’s that replaced them came out in 1950. Very nice truck!
My Dad drove a REO troop truck when in the US Army (1950-1953)…probably in Germany, where he was assigned instead of Korea (that due to a real train wreck in Ohio where another train plowed into the back of a troop train stopped due to mechanical problems. My Dad had gone ahead to Camp Atterbury in Indiana to get ready for his fellow troops to follow, after the accident he went back to accompany the bodies back to his home location. Some of the victims had survived WWII and reenlisted, then were federalized when Korean conflict broke out. Probably because of that they were sent to Germany rather than Korea). The troop truck was probably one where he said they’d fasten their K rations to the exhaust manifold to heat up, but because they didn’t know when the next stop would be during maneuvers, inevitably they waited too long and their rations exploded all over the engine compartment, which of course they had to clean up afterwards (plus some other punitive work no doubt).
Other than the REO, my Dad also drove early 50’s VW Beetles which were assigned to him on occasion…they didn’t use Jeeps. Since this was the start of the cold war, he was near the Czech border…in 1993 we unsuccessfully tried to find the town he was stationed in on a family trip on the way from Munich to Prague…we were pressed for time since we had to meet the person renting us the apartment we stayed at, so we couldn’t spend much time, frankly got lost looking for the town, though amazingly we directly drove within a block of where our apartment was located not realizing we’d gotten so close…my Mother, whose first language is Slovak (didn’t learn English as the daughter of an immigrant until she started grade school) got out and asked for directions to the apartment to someone walking nearby, they looked at her like she was crazy for asking and told her to turn left and walk 50 feet …we made up the time lost looking for Dad’s military posting and fortunately (just) got there at the agreed upon time. My Dad (much) later owed a used ’59 Beetle (his first “2nd” car) which was made late in the same decade as the ones he drove in the Army, though it was a rustbucket and later got totalled parked in front of our home by a teen driver living at the end of our street.