Several years ago, I bought a 1950 International L-170 grain truck as a future project to use for hauling hay. As it is with most hobbies these days, there’s a great web forum for these old trucks (oldihc.com). When one of its members posted a request to borrow a cab-mounted sun visor to use as a reproduction pattern, I offered to send him mine, which I wasn’t using at the time.
During our road trip, we took the opportunity to drive up and meet Mike and his family in person. I shot a few photos of the trucks in his shop yard while we visited.
Eventually, this KB-8 will be fitted out with a rollback deck and modern power plant and used for wrecker service.
Mike’s son is working on a KB as well—it has a Cummins diesel in a fairly recent heavy-duty truck chassis. Jeff is quite the panel beater–this truck’s lower fenders and front grille were pretty smashed up when he got it, and you can’t see a ripple in them now.
When you peek inside the tiny KB cab (width: 60″, or 1.5m), you quickly understand why the Comfo-Vision Cab introduced with the 1950 L Series was such a huge hit. It measured almost 70″ (1.78m) across!
These cabs were sold to at least a dozen other OEMs and were produced as late as 1971, on the M Series IH trucks. I have no idea where they hired the guys for the photos in the ad—either one might have weighed 90 pounds soaking wet.
Mike’s other favorite is the R Series, which were face-lifted versions of the previous 1950-52 L Series of trucks. IH offered the R Series from 1953-55, and after that the S Series, which was the last truck designed completely in-house by IH. The S Series name continued in various forms through 2001, while 1957 marked the end of the “light duty” line based on the L/R/S Series platform. This example is an R-160.
Here’s an R Series (evidently an R-180, judging from the badge ‘shadow’), with an aftermarket extended cab—a pretty rare animal to find these days. Mike told me that a truck like this would be built with a standard cab and then sent to a refitter who would modify the cab according to the buyer’s requests. This particular truck, which started its working life in Georgia, went through several owners before alighting at Mike’s shop in Canada.
Here’s another R-160. Now, Paul, what could be cooler than this? Vintage looks with all the modern amenities!
The L, R and S Series trucks were offered in a variety of sizes and configurations, from 3/4-ton L-110 pickups to L-180 trucks rated at 21,000 lbs. (equal to 14 Volkswagen Beetles) GVWR. The R Series ran as large as the R-205, which was rated at 24,000 lbs. (toss on a couple more Beetles). They all used the same cab along with very similar fenders and hood sheet metal.
We had a great visit–in fact, it kind of makes me want to bump up my L a bit on the priority list!
Ad image from ebay.com. All other photos by the author.
I’d have to disagree that the R 180 sleeper could be called an aftermarket conversion. The sleeper portion is made up of Traveall sheet metal and the roof is one piece, I’ve seen pictures of a couple that had all their paint worn away and there is no seam. I’ve also seen IH brochures and spec sheets with the sleeper cab pictured along with the standard cab versions, though of course I can’t find it on the web now that I want to. But I did post a couple others back in https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/the-cc-graveyard-part-four-from-broke-back-mustangs-to-a-monte-carlo-winner-and-some-bikes-too/ I don’t know if it was Chicago Cab company who made the Comfo-Vision Cab who built the sleeper version but you did place a regular order for it and it was installed on the line from what I’ve gathered.
I also don’t understand your comment about the LRS being the last truck designed in house, it is generally accepted that the Comfo -Vison cab was designed as a joint venture of some sort with the Chicago Cab company and that is why it ended up on so many different mfg’s trucks. What us IH’ers refer to as the C and D series were designed in house, I’ve seen factory pictures of the clay mock ups in IH studios.
All in all though some great trucks he has there.
Heh. I went looking for information on R180 sleepers, and the first result was a thread on justih.org with a familiar looking truck…
http://www.justih.org/Binder-Bench/showthread.php?t=11896
Good additional info, Eric. Mike was explaining to me how the sleeper cabs (and other cab configs) were done, and I do remember him saying they were not installed that way on the line. I’ve sent him a link to this post, so maybe he’ll add some additional info.
The comment about these being the last to be designed in house I believe was sourced from the wikipedia article on these trucks (I don’t have time at the moment to go dig out the several web sources I used). Working for a large earthmoving equipment manufacturer, I’m well familiar with the fact that, even with machines we design “in house,” there is still a lot of collaboration with external suppliers, so you probably have to read some leeway into the “in house” statement.
I’ll add a meta here, too, in that I’m finding that it’s really hard to *quickly* skim several resources for facts and figures when putting a post together – I seem to frequently get incorrect or muddled info. I’m working on improving that, but for this series, spending three-plus hours researching each one simply hasn’t been an option! (c: So, I appreciate those who are more knowledgable piping in with (gentle) correction and additional information…
Yes the definition of in house is certainly up for interpretation particularly when you are not talking about the big 2.
In the case of my beloved Scout IIs on a parts count basis more of it came out of GM factories than a IH factory. However the overall design was done by IH and they reached into GM and other suppliers parts bins and contracted with them and others to produce other parts to keep tooling costs down.
I agree that when writing these articles it is difficult to quickly gather info and properly vet it, particularly if you are doing it on the run.
Ed actually has 2 operations mixed together. The Back Alley Customs name is my boy, and he does many custom and one of a kind designs. http://www.backalleycustomsmerritt.ca/
My site is: http://www.magihcvintagetruck.ca/
We buy and sell trucks, and parts for medium, and light IHC trucks earlier than 56.
The sleeper cabs were offered by (SP?) ORRVILLE TRUCK BODIES. They were available as an optional cab, and I have the brochures from IHC. These cabs were used on many other OEM trucks as well, such as Diamond T. The travelall was also as far as I know developed by the OTB co. No one seems to be able to determine who produced the base comfo vision cab over all, but some research leads us to believe that it was a colaboration of IHC, and Diamond T. If someone has this info, please contact me.
No matter who did it, or what details are foggy, those trucks are very appealing!
Thanks Ed for the loan of the visor, and the note here. Really happy to have met you and your wife.
Mike
It is incredible just how murky the info on the CV cab is. One thing I know for certain is that there are patents issued to IH and soely IH for a number of the inovations of the CV cab (of course I can’t find that info on the web now) IH’s normal mode of operation was to have sheetmetal stampings done by an outside company despite the fact that they desgined it. Usually they were the ones that then assembled the stampings into a final body. That held true untill the “D” series trucks and the Scout II.
While looking for the page on the CV cab patent info I came across this little gem from down under an AL coupe utility.
Nice one Eric! Both IH and Dodge had locally developed models denoted by the A prefix.
There is a local tv show Classic Restos (as in Restorations) that is doing a series on trucks at the moment, they had a Dodge AT4 575 the other week. Apparently you could spec them for a 100mph top end, which was popular for newspaper delivery use. That model shared its cab with IH with just the front end treatment to distinguish the two.
I don’t know about all that but I think we should all chip in and send you on another vacation. Love the variety.
In a recent comment I noted an epiphany, a milestone “better idea”: i.e. that you could buy and own one vehicle for life, if you made up your mind to do so.
My experience with L and R series IH trucks, as brutally honest and rugged as they were and thus earning a modicum of respect, represents the opposite pole: the dumbest chapter, the “worst idea” in my automotive life.
I had five of these, from 100 to 130 series, both L and R. Each additional one was purchased “for parts” to backup the previous one. But then, the parts vehicle, although beat to a far-thee-well, was too good to throw away, necessitating getting yet another one “for parts”. And so on.
I wasted my youth on these. They were never worth anything and only good for strictly “commercial” use, certainly not for pleasure.
I tried making a camper truck (like in your photo) from an R110. Trouble is the cab was so high, and the track so narrow, that you ended up with a topsy turvy truck that was only acceptable when not in motion. In the process, however, I did learn how NOT to do it, experience that served me well when I chose the vehicle to build the camper truck I now own.
That cab, tho, was a marvel. The most room for the shortest distance between cowl and rear window. Very efficient use of space. I’ll second that.
Incidentally, IH didn’t stop at 3/4 ton in these models. They also made a 1/2 ton, the L-100, R-100, S-100. The 110s were 3/4 ton.
The 110 is the nominal 1/2 ton the 120 the nominal 3/4 ton ect.
The 100/1000/1010 series wasn’t introduced until the 1961 model year and it too was a 1/2 also but featured the torsion bar IFS instead of a I beam straight axle.
But yes IH’s have been clinically shown to be the most addictive motor vehicle known to man. Special things were added to the steel that when oxidized and entered into the body creates a strong addiction and the inability to “kill” a truck by parting it out and trying to save everyone you find. It is a process that has been repeated over and over again.
I think Studebaker used a slightly milder grade of that same steel.
Funny, because I passed a house today with *three* Studes in various states of discomposure in the front yard/driveway.
@ Eric: I owned a ’55 R100 and a ’55 R110. They were separate models, the 100 much lighter duty than the 110.
I’d love to see some proof of that because every thing I’ve ever seen from the Crimson book to brochures and specification sheets shows the L R and S models as starting at the 110 and the payload of such being a nominal 1/2 ton.
Great article and pictures. The Steam Whistle Brewery in Toronto, Ontario has a fleet of old trucks, and several years ago (I’m not sure if they still have it) they had a restored red KB like the one in your article, complete with a modern diesel engine. It had a flatbed with rails if I remember correctly, and (naturally) lots of room for kegs of beer.
When I was a kid my father had a 1949 KB-11F (the F suffix indicated a six-wheeler) that he used to pull the lowboy. It took me the longest time to figure out that all the big Binders that used that cab had different door windows than the pickups that used the otherwise same cab. The gray dump truck shown here has those windows – the red one has the smaller door windows that I associated with pickups.
I would like to buy ih with sleeper please email me back the white comfo vision with sleeper
Would like to buy r-190 with sleeper from Georgia please email me
ED, I never got the link to this pal. Sorry.
Just to clear some air, even after so long a time. The altered cab versions were almost all made by Orroville Metal Works of (I believe) Oregon. My spelling of the name may be wrong. This includes crew cabs, and all Travelall bodies.
The sleeper is not a modified Travelall, but does share the conspicuous rear side window. The back of the sleeper cab is easily a foot wider than any other comfo cab.
You can easily make the alterations, but these were factory cabs made by order and offered as options thru IHC. I have the original build sheet (Line Setting Ticket) that Mayflower trucking ordered on the white R-180 sleeper cab. The cabs were installed on the assembly floor, not at a second location.
I have actually never heard/found who the primary cab manufacturer was. There are many rumors about a collaboration between IHC and Diamond T, but no historical proof I can find. The cabs bear no part number, or decals like body by fisher” etc.
The white sleeper cab went to a buyer in Calgary Alberta.