Trucking companies began to emerge thanks to increased demand, and steadily improving roads. At this time, Philly to New York was considered a lengthy trip, and the Great Depression threw a wrench in the gear of many manufacturers and operators.
The Act established regulations for freight-hauling and limited the number of hours truckers were allowed to drive at one time. It also restricted and oversaw the types of cargo trucks could carry - at first, truckers thought these restrictions would impede progress of the entire trucking industry, as the Motor Carrier Act appeared to place trucking in the same categories as railway transport.
The big rig industry is well known for its grunt and power, as well as its big brands. The first semis were two wheel powered beasts, but the beginning of the 20th century saw the big rig grow.
Today, a typical tractor unit features two or three axles, and can feature up to as many as five - all specially built for towing and hauling commercial construction machinery and huge loads. Of the most common rigs, you can expect to see a forward engine, one steering axle, and two drive axles. The purpose of the dual drive axles is to evenly distribute the weight of the load between the axles. Brooklyn, New York. A small manufacturer called Mack begins to develop heavy-duty commercial trucking vehicles.
They also begin to manufacture their own engines, equipped with automatic starters and making the age-old hand-crank completely obsolete.
Mack produced over 2, trucks from , garnering a reputation as tough, dependable trucks. Others began to take note, and the race was on. In Tacoma, Washington in , the logging industry was in desperate need of a transportation savior - and they got it in Peterbilt, a truck company that would be used extensively to haul and transport lumber to mills in the Pacific Northwest.
The Econoline was more conventional, with its engine mounted up front and rear-wheel drive. Dodge followed the Ford model in with a flat-nose pickup based on the A van. Never as popular with customers as conventional pickups, these forward-control designs began to disappear by the mids as manufacturers focused on the growing demand for conventional pickups.
The Corvair was discontinued in , while Ford and Dodge soldiered on until and , respectively. As pickups continued to find their way off the farm and into suburban driveways, buyers began to demand more style and amenities. Their exterior was further gussied up with two-tone paint and liberal applications of chrome. The decadence continued inside, with matching two-tone upholstery and unheard-of amenities such as dual sun visors and armrests—all for a hefty percent price premium. Still, the design was a modest success, and other makers soon followed suit.
By , Ford, Dodge, and GM all offered smooth-sided pickups but with conventional steel bodies. The names stuck, but both manufacturers played around with different platforms for their car-based pickups before settling on mid-size models by the mids. Options lists grew long, letting buyers choose anything from a fairly basic model to a feature-laden Cowboy Cadillac and even sporty Ford Ranchero GT and Chevrolet El Camino SS models with the same big V-8 engines found in muscle-car siblings.
The now defunct International Harvester introduced the first crew-cab pickup, the Travelette, in Dodge joined the party in , although its earliest examples were converted by an outside contractor. Production moved in-house in , and Ford brought out its own four-door pickup a year later. The first crew cabs were bought almost exclusively by utility companies and contractors, and they were designed solely to get workers and their gear to and from the job site.
Extended cabs are another family-friendly option. The first was the Dodge Club Cab of , which was a two-door with its cab stretched by 18 inches and a small back seat. Ford followed suit with the SuperCab in The configuration is still offered by domestic manufacturers, although now with small rear doors.
As Japanese cars began to arrive in the United States, pickups were not far behind. Datsun now Nissan was the first to land a truck in stateside showrooms, with the Datsun arriving for the model year. With a quarter-ton payload capacity and just 37 horsepower from a 1. Undeterred, Datsun fitted a larger cc engine, and sales began a slow but steady climb.
By the dawn of the s, the compact-pickup-truck craze was in full swing, led by those trendy Californians and their fondness for modifying pickups with wider tires, custom wheels, and other personal touches. Datsun and Toyota reaped the benefits, with combined sales of roughly , units per year. Those numbers were too big for domestic manufacturers to ignore, leading to the introduction of so-called captive-import pickups from their overseas subsidiaries. None enjoyed anywhere near the sales volumes of Datsun and Toyota.
Most disappeared in the early s. Chevrolet and GMC launched the larger, domestically built S and S in , and Ford followed with the long-running Ranger starting in the model year. The little-known Dodge Custom Sports Special of —67 came with un-truck-like features for the time, including full carpeting, bucket seats, a console, and racing stripes.
And there was more to be had, provided buyers skipped the standard slant-six or lesser V-8s available and went for the High Performance package. A factory brochure listed the push-button three-speed automatic as the only transmission choice with the , along with other high-performance equipment including dual exhausts, heavy-duty springs front and rear, and special instrumentation including a tachometer.
It makes no mention of upgraded brakes, however, which may be part of the reason these trucks are so rare. Mack Trucks was an early innovator of heavy-duty commercial vehicles.
Founded in in Brooklyn, N. During the years from until , Mack produced 2, semi or full trailers. Mack soon developed a reputation for building tough trucks and the brand name became known for durability.
The logging industry had an effect on the progress and popularity of the semi truck. The truck company Peterbilt, based in Tacoma, Washington, began selling its semi trucks in Peterbilt trucks were used extensively to haul logs from the forests to the lumber mills.
Peterman found frustrating the standard method of transporting logs by river or horse teams and decided to refurbish surplus Army trucks equipped with trailers specifically made to haul logs. So the various types of semi trailers we see traveling down the highways today is the evolution of a semi trailer designed to haul a single car. Over a hundred years, the two wheel semi trailer from Winton has evolved into an eighteen wheeled semi-truck with three axles.
Today, semi trucks transport more than , tons of goods each year in the United States that are taken to destinations by 3. This represents more than 70 percent of all U.
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