NOVEMBER 2008 OLD TIME TRUCKS
THE FAST & THE FURIOUS
By John & Shirley Sponholtz
The International Harvester Company was formed in 1902 when the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and Deering Harvester Company, along with three smaller agricultural equipment firms, merged together in Chicago, Illinois. The company introduced their first truck in 1907. In 1915 the company made significant mechanical and stylistic changes to their trucks. The 1919 Model F pictured here featured many of those changes, including a 201 cubic inch “L Head” engine with four cylinders, which was considered a great advancement. Chain drives were popular during this era, but keeping the exposed chain clean was a big problem so there was also a change to shaft drives, which eventually became the standard for many years. This truck included the new drive which had a shaft from the engine to the rear axle. The rear axle had internal gears to drive the vehicle. This Model F also had a new three-speed sliding gear transmission and semi-elliptical springs, not to mention the new pneumatic tires instead of wagon wheels with solid rubber tires. The Model F was considered a fast and powerful truck because of its top speed of 17 mph, making it one of the original “Fast and Furious” vehicles. This particular truck is owned by the Iowa 80 Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa and can be seen on display in their trucking museum from time to time.