Some of the trucks that enter the Lost and Found category of this website have the potential return to the road. Others do not. I’m going to leave it up to you to decided where these these trucks fall on that sliding scale. What do you think about this Reo? Save or crush?
You know what my answer would be! Jake sends us these photos and tells us the truck reside at the rear of a scrap yard noting that it would be a big deal just to pull these rigs to the crusher if that was to be their fate. How about this 50’s International? L or R series? I’m not sure but I believe the clue lies in the number of slats on the grill.
Check out the early Loadstar in the gallery below. It may not look like much but you’ve seen what some talent and the right tools can do when the come together, Project Heavy Metal.
Big thanks to Jake for sharing these photos! Know of any old trucks or heavy equipment in hiding? Email Me!
Of course we must save them. The crusher is no longer an option. Way too many have gone by the way side, only evidenced by our photo collections.
That IHC is definitely an R-model. The clue is the outline of the “man on a tractor” IH logo which didn’t appear until 1953, which was also the first year of the R series (both light and heavy). All heavy R-models had the three vertical bar top section of the grills. Most of the L-models used the seven, thinner vertical bars in this grill section with the exception of the 1952 models which used the three bar design but had the earlier grill emblem.
We had a Reo like that over at the Town of Sullivan, a single axle 1967 602E. P&S Concrete in Chittenango had 3 of them (might have been Diamond Reo’s, but the same sheet metal design) they used as transit mixers. One of my big “misses” in not getting them on film before they disappeared.