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1924 Dodge Brothers Half-Ton CargoTruck |
Another puzzling photo from a forum of car photos asking for information on the make of vehicle not yet identified. The photo is dated on the front as 1921, which should mean that the vehicle is 1921 or earlier. The radiator and high mounted headlamps suggest Dodge Brothers but other features suggest the vehicle must be a bit younger. The 'pick-up' style soft-top version vehicles were only introduced by Doge Brothers in 1918 and then specifically specifically for the American Army. when 1,100 were send to France for World War 1 use as "Light Repair Vehicles". None were available privately until 1924. The connection between the Dodge Brothers Model 30 car and the US Military seems to have started with the Pancho Villa expedition and the Mexican Border War 1916, when a fleet of nearly 200 mostly Dodge Brothers cars was assembled to run army convoys into the area and mount America's first motorized military raid. Thus, when very soon after, the European World War One began, the US military were already used to the Dodge Brothers quality, and Dodge Brothers had a vehicle ready for it based on the Model 30. These new vehicles were called the Dodge M1918 Light Repair Truck G10, initially having open cab and a canvass covered small steel Insley body on a half-ton car chassis fitted with boxes of tools and lubricants. Seven point Kelsey wheels were used. Many vehicles were sent to Europe as 'knock-down-kits' for self-assembly at the front. Some reports have it that overall 8,559 such Light Repair Truck and Light Delivery Trucks were ordered for the WW1 war effort, as well as a further 3,200 hard top staff-cars. One third of the overall total never made it to Europe due to the end of the war, and those vehicles emained in the US to be used by the Army. At the end of WW1, those Dodge vehicles which had remained usable in Europe were not repatriated but were sold to the French or British governments. Documentary evidence suggests that no Dodge soft-top vehicles had in the meantime been available to private purchasers in the US until 1924, when the Half Ton Truck was introduced, and that therefore any such vehicles dated prior to that would most probably have been conversions. As the date on the photo appears 1921, this suggest that the vehicle is either clandestine, or that it could have been one of the later conversions, or that the date on the photo could be wrong, or perhaps that the date is a chopped 1927, or that it is a later post 1924 standard Dodge Half-Ton Truck. |
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| M1918 Dodge Light Repair Truck G10 | |
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| c1924 Dodge Half-Ton Truck. | |