All big cab-over-engine (“COE”) trucks have become rare in the US, but some brands and models were rare (and unusual) even back in their day. In this gallery we’ll take a look at some of these, which includes brands that are long gone as well as some models by still-existing manufacturers that were not common sights.
Note: some of these images have been colorized and in some cases by AI, which might have changed some minor details. I have avoided images “fixed” by AI that clearly are inaccurate.
This is a highly unusual 8×4 custom-built Peterbilt dromedary for PIE (Pacific Intermountain Express), a large common carrier. The dual front axes would have been needed in order not to exceed the maximum per axle loading in the states where it operated.
Dodge trucks, especially cab-overs, were definitely not a common sight in the ’50s and ’60s. But if you’re going to haul a load of new ’58 Plymouths, what else would you use?
The International Sightliner, with its foot-level windows (and wipers) was a decidedly odd creation, and not many were sold. This photo is from 1960 and it looks to be new. Parts of the cab are shared with International pickups, light trucks and the Loadstar.
This Diamond T 921 is hauling two short trailers. I’m particularly fond of this cab, with its curving front end, but it was a fairly rare sight back then, at least for me.
FWD specialized in off-road trucks, but they also built this “Forward Mover” COE.
Just to prove that these FWD Forward Movers weren’t total unicorns, here’s another one on the move. No glare from those forward-slanted big windshield panes.
This compact Mack D is from the 1950s. Not one of their better sellers; I cannot remember seeing one of these. The Mack cast front wheels with their hubcaps a re distinct feature of the brand.
The Mack MB replaced the D, and these were quite commonly seen as garbage trucks and in other vocational applications. Here’s one hauling the mail.
Here’s another 8×4 dromedary, this one with a penthouse sleeper, also built by Peterbilt for Ringsby System. These common carriers were always looking for ways to optimize their cargo volume within the length restrictions in the states they operated in and had the capital to have custom trucks built for them.
The Mack G was built for only a fairly short time (1959-1962) before being replaced by the much more familiar F Series. The G had an aluminum cab which had a rep for being very noisy. It looks rather similar to the Kenworth cab, and quite modern for the times.
One of my favorite trucks of the ’50s, the International RD. The little cab perched so high up there was the same one used in pickups and such. This photo has supposedly been cleaned up by AI, but I don’t see any obvious changes.
A Mack H67 from the 1950s. I’m a big fan of Macks from this era, and the H series COE is quite a handsome design.
This is a wonderful shot of another Mack H on the go by Joe Wanchura, who shot trucks all over the country while driving a truck or car.
Let’s take a look at some Whites. This burly tanker is from the 1940s.
The White 3000 was a tilt cab pioneer, and most were gas-engine versions used mainly in local and regional service. In order to accommodate a big Cummins diesel, the cab had to be raised, as can be seen by the deeper front fender.
The White 5000 was something of a dud, and quite rarely seen. This one is hauling an exceptionally long load of Studebakers under a special operating permit.
An old-school COE by Dodge, from the early 1940s. Engine access was mainly through a removable access in the floor of the cab.
A Dodge LNT in car carrier use. Dodge tried hard to stay competitive in the Class 8 truck market, but this was the end of the road for them.
A Diamond T from the 1960s.
The Brockway COE shared the Mack F series cab, which sometimes fooled me when I’d see one coming from a distance.
Freightliners certainly aren’t rare, but these early ones with the rounded nose were mostly gone by the time I became a serious truck spotter. This one is working for Consolidated Freightways, which first created the Freightliner for just their own use, with an emphasis on lightness, hence the pioneering aluminum cab. It was soon offered to other operators and the rest is history, with Freightliner now being the #1 selling big truck.
And early ’50s Ford hauling a load of new Studebakers. By this time Studebaker had no COE trucks to use where there were length restrictions.
But back in 1935, Studebaker did have a cab-over in the line, and this one is a car hauler too.
This Dodge from 1939 used a cab made by Montpelier, and quite a stylish cab at that.
One of my favorites pictures of this bunch; this is a “homemade” GMC cab-over. “Eat More Meat” and “Ship By Truck”. Looks like it has a short single axle trailer; that’s a very unusual combination.
The H Series was Ford’s effort to compete with the “big boys”. It was a C-Series cab mounted higher. Not seen very commonly but Ford managed to stay in the big COE market for two more generations.
A Peterbilt 351, the predecessor to the very popular 352.
One of the original two prototype Paymaster trucks. Trucker Dean Hobbensiefken, based near Portland, Oregon, decided in the late ’60s that he could design a better truck, one more efficient, easier to service, more reliable, and one that also looked a lot more advanced than the crackerboxes being built at the time. He built two prototypes and got Ryder interested. The radiators were on both sides of the cab, just behind it. It looks to be shod with wide-single tires on both axles, another advanced, weight-saving feature.
I did a closer look at the Paymaster here. Obviously, it did not take off, with only 14 built.
A Diamond Reo, still mostly the same truck as the Diamond T I showed earlier.
Not exactly a COE, but a CBE (Cab Beside Engine) by Kenworth.
A Chevy COE from the 1940s hauling cars. I actually found and shot one of these back in 2011 and wrote it up here. These old mid-weight Chevy (and other brands) COEs are a hot number with restomodders.
This was the biggest Chevy COE truck at the time, but not one commonly seen in long haul operation. Two skinny exhaust pipes are most likely connected to a DD 6-71, but it could possibly be a GMC Toroflow diesel.
When GMC reorganized their truck divisions, they allowed Chevy to have everything that GMC had, including the very handsome GMC Astro 95, renamed the Chevrolet Titan 90.
The original Peterbilt COE was exceptionally tall, which gave it a dominant presence on the road.
This Kenworth is a bit unusual for the US, being a straight truck with a full trailer. That used to be virtually the standard for long distance trucks in Europe but was always rather rare here.
Have you heard of a Cline? They were typically built for special applications, like this rig with railroad wheels.
We’re saving the real oddballs for last. Corbitt built trucks on a fairly small scale, mostly conventional, but they also built ten of the very tall and wide (to seat four) COEs for Turner Moving Engineers. I wrote these unusual trucks up here.
And then there’s Fageol, one of the most innovative bus and truck builders ever. Their bankrupt West Coast truck business was sold to Peterbilt, but they continued to make trucks and such in their eastern facility. This COE was essentially the front portion of their unusual Super Freighter. Jim Brophy wrote that up here.
This is also a later Fageol, with a more modern cab.
Hendrickson used the Murty Brothers-designed tilt cab that was also used by International, Diamond T and Reo.
Later, they used this cab, which looks to be unique to them, or mostly so.
Marmon had this modern but boxy COE cab in the ’70s and ’80s.
Oshkosh is also primarily a special purpose off-road truck builder, but this one seems to have been in regular on-road use.
Yes, a Scania in the US. There was a time when several of the European brands tried to make inroads here, with varying degrees of success.
Obviously Volvo came too, and they eventually bought out White. This is an F7 hauling three newly arrived Ferraris at the port in Baltimore.
We’ll finish with this fine old shot of several vintage COEs. From the left, a Peterbilt, a Freightliner, a Kenworth, an International and another Kenworth. The height of the Peterbilt is quite apparent here.
Related CC reading:
A Gallery Of Classic, Rare and Forgotten Big COE Trucks
Truckstop Classic: 1941 Chevrolet COE: Streamlining Arrives Down On The Farm
Those Curious Long Wheelbase West Coast COE Trucks – Why Did They Do This?
A Gallery Of Majestic Peterbilt COE Trucks – Riding High And Mighty
Vintage Trucks: A Gallery of International COE Semis – Some More Unconventional Than Others
Curbside Cabovers: Long Haul COEs Still in Use
One of the most pleasing articles I’ve perused in a long time. I’m far from sated by car shapes, but have an increasing curiosity with truck cab shapes and this cavalcade is demonstrative of why. So pragmatic, yet so exotic; they hold the same fascination in me that dinosaurs hold in young children. Much appreciated Paul.
My pleasure! I keep going back to the well for these old trucks as they are highly evocative and fascinating to me, and have been since I was a little kid. But then I can say that about trains, tractors, airplanes and a few others too.
Like cars (CUVs) these days, the trucks on the roads here almost all look the same.
WOW! The old truck salesman loves this collection. Thanks so much.
The green Kenworth Cab beside engine reminded me of when I had a summer job at a brewery. They had what resembled one of those CBE trucks that they referred to as a “Donkey”. It was used just for shuttling trailers around the yard, it never had any road duty.
Yard goats are special thing which usually have a hydraulic lifting fifth wheel so they can move a trailer without raising the landing gear and a back door in the cab so the driver can connect air hoses. Ottawa and Kalmar are the most common ones
What a great post with a some real oddities.
That Corbitt looks very tall. Must be like driving a house from the second floor.
There used to a White 3000 for sale around here. Languished on the classified forever. The owner wanted premium money for what would be a giant project.
Never seen a Mack D. I feel like that would make a good front end for a firetruck.
I think I have nit seen a COE long haul truck in New York region for a long time. The truck companies just don’t want them. Ironically I was just back from a trip in China, almost all trucks, long haul and delivery, are COE. Note these days long haul trucking is popular in China because it has a very nice national highway network. The logistic companies take the advantage of that. I found CoE is also popular in Japan, Europe and Korea
To add to your list of imports, Mercedes Benz sold the NG cabovers in the US for a while. Bark Blowers in Tigard Oregon had a Mercedes NG dump truck until at least 2013 or 14
Great job, you have some good ones there! Hughes Grocery in Southern California had IH Sightliners. Seems the most common application for those trucks was a short 2 axle tractor, which is what the Hughes rigs were. I think Sightliners were exclusively powered by International’s large gasoline V-8’s like the 477 and 549. The Diamond-T 921 was often referred to as the ‘China Cabinet’, and you are correct they were never too common. The White 5000 was indeed a dud, its fiberglass cab was known to have structural issues and water leaks. The Mack G series was something of a mystery. There were rumors Kenworth threatened to sue Mack over the G’s cab design as they felt it infringed on the Kenworth K series patents, so Mack dropped the G in a hurry and replaced it with the F series. The F series cab was supposedly a Brockway design that Mack borrowed. Not sure how accurate that story is, but it sounds plausable.
Some very interesting trucks here, not to say peculiar. Most I knew about, if vaguely in some cases, but some are completely new to me. The Mack H67 is a fantastic looking thing! The International Sightliner fascinates me. I imagine you wouldn’t see a whole lot with a dashboard obstructing the view downward, especially on the driver side; I’d love to see a PoV shot from the driver’s perspective. I do know that the ‘microwave’ window on the nearside of the Leyland Roadrunner (which was intended for city distribution and was a lot lower than this International) offered relatively little real-world benefit to drivers.
Splendid collection, it’s like going through the Ron Adams and Stan Holtzman books all over again, bought some 25 to 30 years ago. Love the Kenworth with the full trailer. A straight cabover truck with three axles, towing a full trailer with three axles, still a common sight here.
That Mack Model D has been AI’ed to death.
The Chevy pulling the moving van probably has a 427 gas engine – it has a V under the Chevy logo.
A great many of those Chevy’s were indeed powered by 427’s, but that example has the raised cab as evidenced by the thick fenders and gap between the grille and bumper. That usually indicates diesel power, and the Detroit 6V-53 would be most common. Still a ‘V’, so the emblem is appropriate!
This takes me back to my childhood, and road trips, when trucks were slow, held up traffic, and all seemed to need overtaking. Most of what I saw on the roads then was British in origin (which accounts for the slowness), making these ones largely unfamiliar.
Brilliant article Paul. It took me right back to the early 1980s when I was given a book ‘Trucks in New Zealand’, filled with photos of trucks in use at the time. The designs back then seemed a lot more varied and interesting than most of today’s.
Best looking is the White 3000, although the Montpelier-cabbed Dodge is intriguing.
The Corbitt Highboy wins the prize for unattractiveness – but sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole that started with your Corbitt article and ended with the Corbitt website where I found photos of the Corbitt’s regular and sleeper cabs. Interesting use of space, but not somewhere I’d like to snooze!
Special shout-out to the cast Mack wheels, always a favourite!
Of note, the White 5000 (hauling the Studebakers) had an all-fiberglass cab, rather innovative for its time.
That Coke Chevy Titan is exactly the operator I always thought would have been the buyer for Chevrolet-branded big rigs, the ’70s being towards the end of the era when Coke and Pepsi were handled by independent local franchise bottlers. This one probably ran an all-Chevy fleet: one contract with one dealership for the Titans to deliver to large supermarkets, Class 6-8 box trucks or still even rollside beverage bodies (either with the 72″ steel tilt cab (like that other Chevy) or medium conventional cabs) a C-20 pickup with Tommy Gate for delivering vending machines, a van for the vending mechanic, a fleet of Nova and Chevelle sedans for the merchandisers…
The Corbitt “Tall Boy” actually had a sleeper compartment above the radiator and below the floor of the driver compartment. Corbitt also supplied chassis to Oren “The South’s only Firetruck Manufacture”.
I,ve heard the KW vs Mack G model controversy before, nice thing about the Mack G was the access panel on the drivers side to work under the dash.
Photo 12 is an H 63 Mack, note the pedestal headlight, H67s had quad headlights mounted in a broader flatter fender. For as small as an H model appears they were quite roomy, at 6″2 and #225 i was comfortable in one.
70s and 80s was a hot time for COEs and worked on many dating back to the early ’60s.
Thanks for the great selection of photos!
That International Sightliner is the Leyland FG taken to the next level…
The invisibility cone must have been horrendous in those pick up cabs perched so high.
With the dog kennel in there too, did the driver have to saw his feet off?
The Jimmy Astro must have felt like a bubble by comparison.
This was very cool, thanks.