Behind The Wheel 1939 Diamond T Truck

ROY AND SHIRLEY GRAINGER’S 1939 DIAMOND T TRUCK

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY!

WORDS AND PHOTOS GREG PRICE

Invercargill’s late Bill Richardson was famous, not only for his magnificent truck collection, but also for the fact that he purportedly never sold any of them – except this one!

If this truck looks in any way familiar it is probably because you may have seen it featured on the cover of Steve Reid’s Vintage Trucks and Commercials book, which was part of his Kiwi Collections series. For my part my formative years were spent perusing comics of the era which quite often had classic American trucks scattered in among the characters to add to the storyline. I vividly recall early Superman comics and New Zealand’s own Zane Grey’s King of the Royal Mounted series often had Diamond T trucks involved in their story lines somewhere. Diamond T trucks were probably favoured by the artists because they were relatively easy to sketch, with their separate grilles, single headlights mounted on the front guards, and traditional lines. Whack a canopy on the back and you’ve got the ideal vehicle for concealing something nefarious.

In reality though, Diamond T trucks were a popular American workhorse, and the larger variants had a strong presence in WWII. Bill Richardson (1940-2005) for those who didn’t know, “was a loving family man, successful businessman and avid truck collector”. During his lifetime he amassed a private collection of over 170 trucks. Eventually his passion culminated in becoming the largest private automotive museum of its type in the world. Definitely worth a trip to Invercargill if you haven’t already seen it, and allow at least two full days, because the former classic motorcycle museum from Nelson has now been relocated down to Invercargill.

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT DIAMOND T TRUCKS?

Back in 1905 – when automobiles were just beginning to make an appearance – Charles Arthur Tilt of Chicago, USA made the first Diamond T vehicles. Reportedly, the company name was created when Tilt’s shoe-making father fashioned a logo featuring a big T (for Tilt) framed by a diamond, which signified high quality. The company’s hood emblem on trucks was a sled dog in harness. He started out with cars but ultimately became well-known for his beautiful trucks. Tilt had a vision and wanted people to think of class and quality when they thought of Diamond T – which wasn’t the usual blurb about truck brands! In 1927-28 Tilt designed stylish

medium and heavy duty trucks that sold out consistently, despite the depression. They were marketed as the “World’s Handsomest Motor Trucks”. Handsome they are. The 1930-50s were the heyday of Diamond T trucks and it’s easy to see the attraction they had for Bill Richardson – and Roy and Shirley Grainger.

Over the 56-year history of the company, about 250,000 stylish Diamond T trucks were sold. White Motor Co. bought Diamond T in 1958 and then merged it with their Reo Division to form the Diamond Reo Division. The last of the Diamond T trucks were built in the 1966 model year.

What I didn’t know was that a handful of Diamond T trucks were sold new in New Zealand. However Roy’s example came in as a chassis, front cowl, bonnet, scuttle, front guards, running boards and wheels. Boon & Co made the cab which is the DeLuxe model. In 1939 it was bought new by Rowley & Sons, a building company in Leeston, Canterbury. However it was quickly commandeered by the army and painted army green (or light brown depending on whose version colour chart you might be using) over its original light blue. It was based in Belfast (Christchurch) and apparently only used for the odd trip to get fuel. After the war it was purchased by a demolition business and painted dark green. A few more owners saw it later paired up with another Diamond T truck and swapped for a 1956 or 1957 Chevrolet.

It is not known precisely when Bill Richardson got his hands on this one, but while he was hunting down further trucks for his museum, he became aware that, in order to get his hands on an elusive Diamond T breakdown truck, he had to take all four of the trucks then on offer, and that included this particular example. Thus, as Bill already had one of these, he was open to letting this one go. Of course as Bill was often offered old trucks for his collection, he had a policy of not selling any of them on lest he got a reputation for on-selling items, and thus possibly adversely affecting the supply going forward. However Roy heard that this truck was possibly for sale, and lusting after his own Diamond T truck, he trekked off down to Invercargill to see Bill. Seemingly it was more of an interview by Bill of a prospective owner. As it eventuated, Roy passed with flying colours and so in 1987 he became the proud new owner.

THE RESTORATION

The truck was not running at the time of acquisition and Roy thinks that it probably hadn’t been started for over 10 years. During the next 13 years Roy set about the ground-up restoration. There were some parts missing, such as those magnificent headlights, over-riders, bumper, bonnet catches and stays and the like. Roy believes that one or two of the missing items had maybe found their way on to Bill’s other Diamond Ts. Auto Restorations (Christchurch) were commissioned to make the chrome bonnet strip. As the over-riders were missing, Roy asked Bill if he could borrow a pair from which to fabricate another lot. Bill subsequently got four over-riders cast and provided Roy with a pair but would not accept any payment for them. On subsequent occasions when he would cross paths with Roy, Bill would say to people, “This is the only old truck I’ve ever sold”!

When it came time to paint the project, Roy initially considered repainting it in its original light blue, but decided on the dark blue it is now – which does really look the part. And so it was that on 3 February 2000, the dreaded certification process was completed and it was road-legal once again.

Remembering that this is essentially a workhorse it is fairly spartan inside with basic brown vinyl pleated seats, and there is no inside door trim, rather the inside panel is painted the same colour as the exterior. The centre instrument console features six gauges which include speedometer, temperature gauge, gasoline, ammeter, clock and oil temperature. These gauges surround five chrome knobs which are labelled spark, choke, lights, throttle and start. Being centred on the dash lent itself to either right hand drive or left hand drive configuration without having to re-design the fascia panel. Ignition is via the traditional turn-key. One of the knobs operates the scuttle vent (or original-type air conditioning). The wheels feature bright red paint with chrome centres and hub caps with Diamond T on each and, noted in the photos, Roy parked it with the writing horizontal to the ground. On the back, the wooden deck has removable sides and backboard, so it can be used as a flat deck, should you want to exceed the allowable load limits. When new, it was designed to carry a 2½ ton load, but supposedly could handle up to four tons. The original building firm owners reportedly carried four ton of cement from the Leeston rail yard back to their depot, but apparently only did this the once to test the claim, as Diamond T guaranteed to make good any repairs incurred with the up to four ton loads. Having regard to the pristine condition of the flat deck and surrounds, not to mention the paint and chrome finish, one wouldn’t really want to carry anything other than your picnic stuff on a Vintage Car Club commercial activity. The wooden storage compartment under the deck on the driver’s side has a horse shoe on the lid – a testament to the horses also located on the Grainger Estate. And you’ve gotta love the instructions on the scuttle! For example, it tells you to tighten the inner wheel nuts first on the rear wheels. Like anyone would try to access them after the second wheel was fitted? Another gem was to use brake fluid in the brake reservoir, not engine oil. There must have been a lot of idiots about back in those days. Mind you, as an aside, my old 1949 Morris Oxford’s workshop manual’s first instruction for removing the cylinder head was, (wait for it…) raise the hood. Imagine lying underneath trying to undo the cylinder head bolts with arms extended up both sides of the motor!

POST RESTORATION ACTIVITY

Roy and Shirley have enjoyed quite a few outings in the truck post restoration and have scored themselves a few trophies on the way. These included a Restoration of the Year event, and a Peoples’ Choice award at a concours rally. They drove it down to Oamaru for another rally, but it was trucked down to Invercargill for the 2007 Bill Richardson Memorial event.

The Diamond T is in good company. It is garaged with a 1929 Graham Paige, a very nice red 1936 Dodge roadster (resplendent

in wide white wall tyres!), a 1971 Ford Falcon XY ute, a 1962 Liteweight caravan and a 1962 Ford Fairlane compact. Hiding in another garage are three Mustangs of varying vintages, one of which is a 1966 example.

THE TEST DRIVE

Having owned a 1926 Austin 12/4 back in the 1960s, which had a crash gearbox, which I eventually wrecked while learning about double declutching, I was reluctant to possibly damage Roy and Shirley’s magnificent truck – so I instructed Editor Kevin to carry out the test drive while I took notes. That way I could blame him if anything went wrong.

The Diamond T started first pull and idled quietly. First gear, which is really only for starting off when fully laden, was selected but quickly changed to second once we were moving off down the long country driveway. Amazingly Roy had entrusted both of us with their pride and joy, probably on the assumption that if we had absconded with it, he could quickly have caught up with us in one of the Mustangs, while we were trying to select third gear!

When we arrived at the gate, there was no traffic coming in either direction so we opted for a left turn and a circuit of the rather long block. Lumbering would be the term I would use to describe the pace of our travel, remembering that this was a workhorse, but unlike my recollections of the comic depictions, there were to be no high-speed runs on this occasion. That was the magic of cartoon depictions – you could make the vehicle look like it was going fast with some lines drawn going backwards in the picture. Kevin eventually mastered the noiseless gear change thing and we toured sedately around the countryside for 10-15 minutes or so. The ride was surprisingly smooth, and the usual truck-type whine was slightly evident throughout the drive. There was good acceleration from the higher gears so changing down to a lower gear was fortuitously seldom required. I presume it would be reasonably comfortable for a longish trip, which of course the

SPECIFICATIONS:

Engine: 6-cylinder Hercules side-valve, 118 hp 205 ci (3400 cc) Transmission: Warner four-speed manual (non-synchromesh!) Differential: The large round thing in the middle of the back axle Wheels: Dual-wheeled on the rear Tyres: 7.00 x 20 inch Maximum Speed: (Don’t know! Kevin wasn’t game to floor it!) But the plate reads 55mph Tare: 1900kgs (the only concession to modern dimensions) Overall Rating: PGA (Pretty good, actually!)

return trip to Oamaru would have been. All too soon we were back at the Grainger farm where Roy was anxiously awaiting our return. Well, he wasn’t actually, rather he was tending his rubbish fire, for which he had a permit, I hasten to add. “Oh, you’re back already?” he was probably thinking. We left the truck parked outside its garage and opted for the nice afternoon tea provided by Shirley – having toured through the other garages on route.

OTHER EXAMPLES OF THE MARQUE

I know of at least one other Diamond T truck in the Vintage Car Club (a nice red example) and as we know the Bill Richardson collection is now the biggest private museum collection of its type in the world (Bill Richardson Transport World), and features no less than six of the seven Diamond T Trucks that Bill owned in his lifetime. Now you know where the seventh one went.

Keep on Trucking!