Something about this big, burly Autocar from the 1950s spoke to me. The image has been colorized, so it’s not quite true to life, but the truck is bigger than life.
Vintage Truck: Autocar Sleeper Hauling Allied Moving Van – Relocating
– Posted on September 2, 2022
It’s been discussed before about the importance of a good name, and ‘Autocar’ seemed like one of the best for a semi-truck. I don’t know what it is about both the name and appearance, but those old Autocars are one of the coolest old semi-trucks.
In fact, for years (before the internet), I thought the menacing semi in the movie Duel was an Autocar. The Peterbilt Spielberg actually used was pretty good, too, but I would have loved it even more if it had been an Autocar.
Betting thats a big old gas V8 of some sort under big snout. Two stacks, one for each bank of cylinders. Notice there is no trail of soot down the side of the trailer like a diesel truck.
Always find it interesting how dirty and just beat looking most trucks from that post war era thru to the 80s look. Very purposeful, not an ounce of chrome or single fuck given to appereance. Just ride it hard like an old mule, squeeze every nickle out of it before junking it
It does say “Autocar – Diesel” on the hood…
I suspect the tractor and trailer were a solid and consistent shade of bright orange, with black tractor fenders and the shade from the trees on the upper rear of the trailer. The colorization process often gets the real colors wildly wrong. In reality, this was probably a very attractive rig, well maintained and looking great in its black and orange livery, with white outlines on the trailer lettering.
The plethora of small states on the upper East Coast means that there is a whole array of state transportation license codes on that rig, and a bunch of license plates as well.
The tractor and trailer are a matched set, tractor #AVL 4144 and trailer #AVL 4144A. Perhaps they kept the rig together so the various area state licenses and permits would mesh across the entire rig. Cross country shipments would require a different arrangement.
Weissberger Moving and Storage is out of Brooklyn, NY.
A sleeper cab with windows in the back, not much privacy, and not how they do them today.
This is what the Allied Van Lines trucks looked like in the real world, back in the day. As these rigs were the public face of the company, the equipment needed to look clean and sharp, so Mom and Dad didn’t freak out when the truck came to collect all of their stuff.
Weissberger had a long relationship with Autocar – this ad is from 1919:
The truck does have ‘Autocar Diesel’ nameplates on the hood, but it could have been retrofitted with a gas V-8. Another posibility is that it is powered by a well-tuned Detroit Diesel 8V-71. However, speaking of large V-8’s Autocar did offer LeRoi gasoline V-8’s throughout the 50’s, and possibly into the early 60’s as well (with ‘Autocar V-8’ badging on the hood!). LeRoi was better known for air compressors but manufactured a range of large OHV V-8’s for trucks and industrial applications. I think the largest LeRoi V-8 was an 844 cubic incher, but Autocar usually used the 540 cubic inch version. LeRoi’s were also found in Seagrave and Crown fire apparatus and a few military Mack trucks. I couldn’t find and pictures of LeRoi’s in trucks, but here is a video of one (running!) in a large Onan genset:
Holy cow…can I just say that of the gazillions of videos on Youtube, you’ve managed to link to one that I’ve actually previously watched in its entirety? That’s got to be some kind of CC-effect. Or something.
I can’t even remember why I watched it, but I also like the whole part in the beginning where he talks about the distributor, setting the points, and of course how he has the engine connected directly to his home’s frickin’ gas meter! Pretty hard core. 🙂
Wait a second…that’s not you in the video, is it?
Sorry, it’s not me. Love to have that genset, I’ll be it could light up my whole block and a couple of Tesla’s as well!
Nice truck!
I have vague memories of the days when certain states required registration of every truck that wanted to operate in those states. Now it’s funny to see a truck with no fewer than NINE registration plates.
I wonder how many days it took that truck to move the goods from, say, NYC to Los Angeles in 1952, then compare that to after the Interstate Highway System was proclaimed completed in the early-1990s.
Cool truck, but I bet it was a beast to drive. My money says no power steering and no front brakes. Along with what, 150-200 HP, maybe? Still, cross country was probably 4 days, maybe 5. Were there limits on driving hours back then? I don’t think so, so I’d guess 10-12 hours a day were the norm. And from what I’ve heard little white pills were too. Traffic was light, albeit on mostly 2 lane highways that passed thru many a small and a few large towns, but lots of hours doing 50-55. You get there, it just takes time.
Similar here now maximum hours per day 14 with two half hour breaks legal maximum velocity 90kmh/56mph and governed trucks but a lot more hp.
Speaking of Autocars a Soviet Zis 5–a sort of Autocar spinoff–is featured prominently in the Russian film Ballad of a Soldier (1960). It’s a good movie and the truck gets a fair amount of attention.
A lot of old truck nameplates have died. During a recent trade show, I was surprised to see that Autocar evidently still exists as an independent company.
If you look closely at the cab, you can see the dual control setup that allows the truck to be driven from either side. I understand this to be a desirable feature in certain truck categories such as curbside recyclers. Hat off to Autocar for addressing the needs of such niche markets.
A better colorization —
My colorization —