Early 20th Century Truck Testing

The pace of truck design and the fierce competition in the second decade of the century did not allow design testing before model release as we know it today. New ideas were literally tested on the road.

Truck driving called for nerves of steel and blood that could run hot or cold, depending on the season. Not much protection with only a roof for a cab. If the weather became too severe, the driver would many times get out and get under the truck for protection. It was common to have a driver suffer from frost bite in the winter, drenching rain in the spring, sunburn in the summer and wind blown in the fall.

The elements were not the only thing truck drivers had to put up with. Creature comforts were not designed into early trucks. Most had a bench seat without padding, suspensions were very stiff and unyielding if they existed at all. Truck drivers would bounce around like a cork in the fish pond most of the trip. The only padded seat they encountered would be in the local tavern after a hard day.

Truck builders of the time, increasingly turned to public demonstrations of their truck's rugged dependability in the rush to better their chances to gain new customers. Instead of race track , as car builders did, they used freight runs between cities to show there superiority. With the lack of a highway system, the winner at best depended on a lot of good luck.

The first transcontinental trip recorded, was a Saurer Motor Co. (import from Switzerland built in their American factory). Part of their sales campaign was to drive west to San Francisco and return. It took more than a year. The cargo was a load of timbers, not for delivery, but to build bridges and use to cross soft terrain. As an example, the trek across New Mexico took more than a month. After reaching the West Coast, they shipped the truck back to Colorado and drove it to New York via Chicago. It had logged over 5000 miles.

In 1916 GMC set out to cross the country in both directions in a truck loaded with 1 and 1/2 tons of Carnation evaporated milk. Driver William Warwick and his wife were under solemn oath to except no help along the way. They would do the needed repairs and free the truck when mired down without assistance of any kind. The truck was washed off the roadway in Colorado by a sudden rain storm, fell through the deck of a ferry boat in Illinois and mired to the axles in about every other state along the way.

In spite of the many problems along the way, the trip was completed in 68 days. Of that, 31 days of actual travel on the road and the rest were making repairs and resting. In trucker language, those days were called layovers because the driver was not at home.

Many of these trips were going on all over the country at the time, with the industry struggling to find it's way to acceptance by the economy of the time. Their competition being government subsidized railroads, and stubborn business men who did not believe the "horseless carriage" would ever replace the horse. Truck Safely out There.