This picture, found at the Facebook group Missouri’s Historic Highways, was taken in December 1961. It shows a snowplow and a motorgrader captured in the state capital in a location along US 50/63 that looks largely unchanged today.
So what’s the big deal?
Look at the emblem on the side of the hood of the plow truck. It’s a Chevrolet Spartan. Times have obviously changed as it’s hard to imagine any automaker putting such an un-luxurious sounding name on any current product.
Chevrolet’s Spartan model range existed during the late 1950s and early 1960s and was used on the heavier duty trucks. Viking was used on medium-duty trucks with Apache on the light duty half-, three-quarter, and one-ton units. Engine choices for the Spartan were gasoline units of up to 348 cubic inches; diesel wouldn’t come along until later.
By 1963 the Spartan name appears to have disappeared in favor of series names, such as Series 50, 60, and 80. Chevrolet’s use of these series names had existed all along, with little use of the Spartan name in brochures, making it appear the “Spartan” name was primarily for advertising purposes, not unlike Chevrolet referring to all their trucks as “Sturdi-Bilt”. For a fleet truck back then, calling it Spartan is likely fitting.
I had never heard of Viking and Spartans in the Chevrolet truck line. I think both are great names for trucks – with Spartan not meaning the now-common idea of a cheap stripper but meaning a warrior who will not accept any luxury that gets in the way of fighting.
I love how they are crowing about the new heater in the 61 and how it keeps the cab 10 degrees warmer. I presume this means that pre-1961 Chevy trucks were unpleasant places to be? Being cold in your truck is no small thing – my BIL the farmer bought a Cummins Ram from the late 90s-early 00s after talking about one for years. After about 2 years he was back in an F-250 after complaining about the sub-par heater that never got the truck warm enough.
This gives me an idea – creating a listing of all the car and truck names in which the name could be interpreted in two ways, has changed over time, or simply acquired some baggage. Examples would be Chevrolet’s Fleetline not being the unit for bulk sales or how Studebaker’s Dictator evolved the way it did in the 1930s.
Speaking of heaters, another project has had me looking at even older truck brochures. Either Dodge or Chevrolet in the late 1930s or early 1940s bragged about their new trucks not requiring the driver “to dismount” and lift the seat cushion when fueling.
Speaking of the double-meaning of Fleetline, do you happen to know when the term Fleet became widely used to denote bulk vehicle sales? I wonder if in the 1940s when the Fleetline debuted, whether people identified Fleet more to mean Quick or to specifically identify fleets of ships?
I suspect (just a wild guess on my part) that the naval meaning became more widely used after WWII to denote bulk quantities of other things, such as fleets of vehicles. I know that Fleet was used to denote vehicles in the 1950s, but I’m just not sure before that.
Eric703, your comment got me curious and I went poking back through newspapers. One sees it more after 1945, perhaps because there are just more trucking firms, but it’s easily found back in the 1920s. I’ll share this one ’cause it gives us a sense of the trucking business then (1923):
Thanks George, you found an earlier reference than I did.
After I wrote the comment above, I went seeking out early fleet vehicle references, and came across several from the 1930s, including this 1931 Chevrolet ad below, which (especially with its Anheuser-Busch product placement) seems too good not to include here.
Fleet is just one of those words with multiple meanings, going back a long time. What’s a bit curious is that “fleet” denoting “swift” has really fallen out of use. But such is the way of words.
There are at least 5 meanings of “fleet”, the third being a marshland creek, the fourth being a verb of something moving or passing quickly (“we fleeted the time away”). And the fifth meaning “of shallow water”.
And yes, the use of the word fleet has been dropping for two centuries.
As far as I can tell, most of those meanings were derived (long ago) from the word float (flēot in Old English), which is how the term became associated with things like ships and streams. I think the meaning of “something moving quickly” also derives from the term fleet‘s long-ago use to denote a fast-moving body of water.
The River Fleet is a river in London, now mostly underground I think, but it lent its name to the more well-known Fleet Street and the former Fleet Prison. I bet, to this day, that the word fleet is more heavily used in British English than in American English.
For that list, I’d definitely recommend Studebaker’s use of Scotsman for their base model cars and pickups. The stereotype of Scotch frugality has faded somewhat in the last 60 years.
It was also plain racist! Though in fairness, such things (and things like Irish jokes or Polish ones) were not seen as such for quite some years after the late ’50’s, even if they certainly were by those to whom they were directed.
I surmise it has something to do with all those groups becoming acceptably “white” in the eyes of traditionally WASPy America. In flyover country, most of the frugal stereotype has now been transferred to Dutch descendants (often self-applied), but even there it’s dying out as one’s ethnic background becomes more mixed and less of a defining trait. I can’t hardly think of anyone in my immediate family who has 100% “pure” background from any one group.
Remember Scotch Buy?
The Standard marque from Britain probably takes the prize on that. It was intended at the turn of the last century to mean “that by which others are judged” and came to mean “the grade below deluxe”.
The Chevy pickup and Suburban lineup had 4 trim levels in 1973.
Custom, Custom Deluxe, Cheyenne, and Cheyenne Super.
It was pared down in later years to Scottsdale and Silverado trim levels before the Silverado changed from a trim level designation to a name for the pickup itself by 1999.
I can’t believe you never heard of Spartan trucks. We had quite a few out here in the Pac NW but I think most were former forest service trucks. Haven’t seen one in decades.
It was early niche-marketing.
GM guessed correctly there was small but profitable market in truck drivers who were also Professors of ancient civilisations.
Note too that they don’t say in the ad that the footroom is reduced, the more comfortable seats de-padded, and, most of all, the heater is COOLER by 10 degrees on the Spartan for the true hardy warrior experience.
I guess the market was too small to justify the specific literature.
Well, a Spartan is easier to spell than Peloponnesian. On the other hand, the Spartans lost the wars, so despite their reputation as brave warriors, it still seemed an odd choice. I suspect the reference was intended to highlight a lower, thrifty trim level. Though perhaps with global warming, plus the challenges of providing energy-efficient cabin heating in electrical vehicles, we may see heaters as an option again in the future.
Note the word “optional”…nowdays, even air-conditioning is just about standard (probably easier to name models that don’t have it standard than those that do) but back then, even a heater wasn’t standard (so if you really wanted to take the spartan name at face value, guess you would forgo the option?).
Still, I was a youngster back in those days so I don’t know if they populated the heater box anyhow under the dash but didn’t hook it up? I’d guess not, but if they did it would make it a bit easier to retrofit at the dealer if one changed their mind (one of my friends bought a new ’89 Accord without air conditioning up north but got his first job working (with me) in Texas…the air conditioning was added by the dealer, for the then stiff price of $1000, we teased him about the single button added to the dash as his “$1000 button”).
I was into cars at a pretty young age, and recall classified section of the newspaper with cars for sale back then (early 60’s) they used to abreviate the options listing r&h (radio and heater…guessing they meant AM radio back then). The odd thing seemed like they were paired up, even though you might just want one and not the other…kind of like you could only get radio and heater, or not, but not one or the either.
I wonder if the end of the “Spartan” name in the early sixties is in any way related to the release of the film “Spartacus” in 1960. Did the name “Spartan” incur a change in meaning due to the film?
I peeked around a little bit online; in marketing, the use as simple/spare/basic/good-value seems to have dropped off (and I see there was a Spartan nuclear missile 50 years ago). Plenty of school teams using the mascot still. On eBay, where new stuff is being marketed to those younger than me it’s all about the warrior image, including Victorinox knives, weaponry, t-shirts and such—including Spartan Mustache Wax as well. (NOTE: unscientific survey)
Apache is familiar, but I’d never seen the Viking and Spartan names. It’s nicely parallel to 150, 210, BelAir. The BelAir was actually 240 but never labeled as such. (Was there a secret name for 150, known only to licensed cheapskates?)
Those detailed pictures of heater and footroom measurements are a nice touch. My feet actuallly feel warmer looking at the nice heat waves.
I can identify the Bug in the parking lot and even see what looks like Paul’s truck (between the grader and the Spartan in the first pic) but what are the other two in the parking lot?
Well, with the no-cost extra of Instant Gigantic Magnification that CC gives me on photos at the moment, I’m going to say a ’59 Imperial on the left, but the black car eludes me: GM forties is my best.
Our high school had different-sized school buses, all GM at the time. The midsize ones were Vikings. The biggest Chevrolets were Spartans. There was one GMC and it was unnamed.
Five years later they were all replaced by identical Internationals.
This snowy, salty looking landscape is all too real for too much of the winter – I’m cold just looking at it. Living in Michigan makes you hate salt, although you get mad when the highway department doesn’t put it down on a slippery day.
Upon enlarging the 1931 Chevrolet ad, it was interesting to see the Anheuser-Busch
red delivery truck was delivering yeast to a bakery!
Prohibition, of course, meant no beer making allowed.
Coors marketed malted milk during prohibition.
Studebaker Scotsman and Dictator have to be the best (or worst) examples of odd naming, IMHO.
The plow on the truck is rather interesting. What is the turning radius? One or two miles?
Doesn’t look like it would improve much with the plow lifted. Perhaps Missouri was using rear steering? The Missouri DOT did build a lot of their own plow equipment. If you have seen any “Tow Plows” that is Missouri’s work.
Good question about turning. Maybe the plow turns with the wheels? I know my fisher mm2 and probably most others won’t follow a sharp turn. From blowing up the photo I can’t tell, but it does look like an awkward arrangement
The tow plow was indeed invented here; I know the guy who invented it. He’s got one of the best retirement gigs I’ve ever seen.
According to my sources, the Missouri DOT used to build their own plows but for the last decade or so all new plow equipment (front plow, belly plow, spreaders, etc.) are coming from Viking-Ceves near Sikeston, in the SE part of the state.
I remember when Bob brought the first one to Minnesota for a demo. It was a pretty skeptical bunch that day. My mission was to get a new plow truck set up to pull it. One of the biggest skeptics was the supervisor that was going to get it. It didn’t take long to flip the attitude.
Econoline is another “thrifty” name that might not work so well today. Although the name was so common, I’m sure lots of people never thought about the message it was intended to send.
Thanks for a good bunch of laughs. I am just getting around to looking at CC at 7:30 PM EST. i want one of those Spartans because it has new hub caps and that stunning grey and black interior, which is just about as ugly as the International Loadstar models with that color combination.
I hadn’t heard of the Spartan but there was a Chevrolet Viking on my local Craigslist in the fall
I wasn’t aware of the Viking name on Chevy trucks until coming across this former school bus in Vermont a few years back. I’m thinking it’s a 1958 or ’59.
I had not heard of Spartan before today.
Coincidentally, my high school mascot was a Viking, and the rival school’s was a Spartan.