A flathead six powered Dodge truck hauling Dodge flathead sixes, locally in Detroit. Well, actually they could be Plymouth or Chrysler flathead sixes, but then there’s not a whole lot of difference.
Vintage Truck: Flathead Powered Flatbed Full Of Flatheads
– Posted on April 25, 2022
A flathead powered flatbed full of flatheads.
Say it three times fast, I dare ya’.
Much better title! I just changed it.
The driver.
Well, Chrysler wasn’t wasting any money keeping this thing looking pretty.
Perhaps it was some kind of yard mule and wasn’t seen by the public.
That was pretty typical of the times. There was less worry (and money) for things like that. The world was a grimier place, especially Detroit.
I’m still thinking it’s a yard mule–that trailer landing gear can’t be more than about 4″ off the ground (which is about 25 cranks on the handle instead of 50).
Curious they don’t seem protected from a rain storm??
They were just being transported locally. And engines don’t dissolve in the rain. 🙂
I wonder if they were headed for the assembly line or somewhere like a parts warehouse.
If it was the assembly line, how long would those 18 or so engines keep the line going?
Yes, this is just local Detroit movement between the engine plant and an assembly plant. There were probably several of these running back and forth all day.
Major component/engine shipping to distant assembly plants would have been with rail cars.
Can you imagine how slow that loaded down truck was?
Floating Power? 🙂
Google Mapping the address on the truck door, 341 Massachusetts Ave, Highland Park, gives no response, but there is a 341 Massachusetts Street. The address is an old house on a corner lot, right across the parkway from a large Coca-Cola warehouse that likely was once a Chrysler facility.
The tires on the truck and trailer also appear very worn out, though the lack of tread could be an artifact of the quality of the photo. However, given the relatively slow speeds likely used in the transfer of the engines, why not wear them down to the cords and simply replace them, as you need to, one by one?
This postcard shows a Chrysler facility at 341 Massachusetts Avenue, in Highland Park. I had no luck finding that address on maps either, but I doubt that the Massachusetts Street location has any relation.
https://www.cardcow.com/95332/chrysler-corporation-341-massachusetts-ave-highland-park/
Must’ve had mighty smooth roads in those days.
If one Dodge Flathead should accidentally fall…..
My guess is the engines are the larger Dodge truck flathead 6’s judging by the oil pans, bell housings, and size of the transmissions.
Another GREAT photo ! .
I remember passing through Detroit in the Summer of 1969 and seeing a cab over hauling a similar load of large bare V8 cylinder blocks .
-Nate
The cars in the parking lot are the same colour as the truck, by some unfortunate coincidence.
It looks like a colorized black & white photo to me, perhaps colorized algorithmically, like NASS does to the old black & white videos.
I remember those when growing up in 1960s Israel. By that stage they all had their gas-guzzling big flatheads replaced by diesels, mostly Perkins or Leyland but there was the odd duck like this used by Shellgas (later Amisragas (American Israeli Gas Ltd)) to deliver… Gas bottles – it had a British Foden 5 cylinder 2 stroke diesel (yes). Those engines were sort of Foden’s version of a Detroit Diesel and just as noisy and smokey.