It’s been a while since an old Brockway appeared in our pages, and this small image collection from the mid ’50s is a good chance to revisit the enigmatic Mad-Maxlike visage of these.
What laid under the mask was a rather attractive truck, actually, as previously covered. A good number of vintage photos show Brockways with their iron masks in place, however, which gives the products from the long-gone small regional player a look very much of their own.
Neither previous posts nor commenters have found an explanation for the iron masks. Most agree it is for some protection. I do live in a place where road conditions are less than ideal, and truck owners add all forms of cobbled-together metal structures in order to safeguard their work vehicles.
Let’s close this brief Brockway post with a nice detail of the make’s logo, almost hiding behind the truck’s notorious thick iron bars:
Further reading:
- Vintage Truck Of The Day: 1940s Brockway – Without Its Mask, It Looks Like A Mercedes
- Car Show Classic: 1957 Broackway 260 – The Big Nor’easter
The masks carry a common style; perhaps they should be thought of as a Brockway “signature” or emblem of sorts.
Terrific photos! Love the ‘throwback’ 1920’s era cab design.
When I look at vintage highway pics from the 1950s, tailgating generally didn’t seem to be a problem. Much fewer cars, being a factor. But getting caught behind one of these molasses slow heavy rigs, would test the most patient drivers.
This is the famous/infamous 401, in Downtown Toronto, in July 1957. Today, one of the world’s busiest freeways. I’m impressed at the reasonably close to ‘two-second’ distancing here. It was the frequent passing, daredevil drivers, that made my dad nervous. Broken down cars, such a common sight back then, and into the 1970s.
I had the scariest drive of my life coming back from a fishing trip to Golden Lake, Ontario in 1978.
Hit the 401 at noon on Friday, in the middle of one of the worst thunderstorm/downpours I have ever experienced, and I live on the south shore of Lake Erie in Ohio, so I’m no stranger to severe thunderstorms.
Stuck in the innermost lane, with construction going on, could not get off, move over, nothing. Had to get over either 4 or 8(?) lanes to an exit, and I was running on fumes. When the rain finally quit, I found that my drivers mirror had been hit and pushed closed.
This was a new 1978 Ford F150, so the mirrors took some force to push inwards.
Fortunately got off in time and got gas, so it worked out, but talk about a white knuckler!
Clever how the grill louvers are angled to deflect road debris away from the radiator.
For some reason likely lost to history and only known to some city purchasing agent from that time the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had quite a few Brockways from this era, complete with the very distictive grille guard and box-like cab, which I believe was wood-framed. L.A.’s Brockways were a fairly common sight right up into the late 70’s. All quite unusual as Brockway had a very small presence on the West Coast even after they were bought out by Mack. This picture was taked near LAX in 1977 I believe.
Picture
Interesting beasts. Never heared about BROKWAY before. The grill mask makes them look very strong and ‘murrican, I think. Like these trucks …
Up to this point I had never heard of Brockway, I’m assuming the grill is there to prevent road debris from hitting the radiator. The grills give these trucks a rather sinister look, I’m reminded of the movie “Duel.”
CCeffect 5×5, There is a 1916 Brockway tanker truck in a BP motorway service centre as a display its in excellent condition but began life carrying fuel in 44 gallon drums and was later converted to a bulk tanker.