Clete site historian |
The Region around Fort Wayne, Indiana , USA started building trucks shortly right at a hundred years ago. It was the massive International Harvester Truck Works - a place where Great Lakes Iron and Steel came in as inert bars and left as belching trucks - as many as ten thousand labored daily in a place that in it's later years built more than a hundred heavy trucks a day down each of its main lines. Also, the Scout Plant... the Scout, along with Fords Bronko, were the first SUV's. the IHC Scout was short lived but built on the same grounds as the big ones. The IHC Truck Works - not a plant, a WORKS - featured a machine shop -maybe a 100 plus yards wide and three or four times that long filled full of the high pitched lathe whine that machined the components for front and rear axles, transmissions, rear axles... all from the raw forged steel, often still warm and fresh from the forge shop. From the outside, the sound of crashes from within - the forge shop -twice as tall as the machine shop and a quarter the foot print was noticeably noisier than the adjacent machine shop or the giant assembly building across the way - forging steel - a noisy hot environment where men, lighted by dim yellow - filthy from head to toe with the steel dust that jarred loose from the impacts -and dwarfed by the huge machines they controlled, suffered heat noise and filth to hammer the steel into the shapes the machine shop could use. Then, larger than all others combined... The huge assembly building, running endlessly in every direction -chewing up the product of the adjacent machine shop to its' south and spitting out, the product of 10,000 - the worth of the works - complete trucks from two modest openings charging the morning sun.
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| DATE: July, 21 1966 The big sign at the massive(10,000 employees) Fort Wayne Harvester plants main gate. WE'RE NUMBER ONE WE'VE JUST BEGUN 10,000 employees, Scout's are being produced, IH owns around 50% market share for medium and heavy duty trucks. All the big boy suppliers have headquarters and or plants within close range Archie McCardle, the man who did the impossible and ruined the IHC company, was some years into the future.
1997 report 1) The International Harvester Company had its truck plant in Fort Wayne for 50+ years. Closed some 20 years ago While Harvester didn't invent the heavy truck, from a practical perspective they might as well have. They owned the market for about a half century and hundreds of their suppliers grew to be today's heavy truck component suppliers. a) Today the Dana's, Eaton's, Fuller's ring NE Indiana and Fort Wayne along with it. Harvester's engineering facility and test track is still here but the mammoth old plant is gone. Smaller nationally known companies specializing in Custom Sleepers such as Double Eagle, Indiana Custom Sleeper and Bentz Sleepers are here, too along with Special Trucks, and Advance Mixer (invented front discharge mixers), Teco(high lifts) and more. b)Strong truck equipment supply companies such as Hoosier Truck Equipment and American Truck Transport are based in Fort Wayne. c) major Truck Stops ring the area d) Cat, Cummins and Detroit Diesel distributors e) three dynamometers within a mile or so of each other 2) Headquarters of North American Van Lines (over 8,000 owner operators work for North American Van Lines or their agents) 3) Fort Wayne Vehicle Auction is the largest fixed location fixed time Heavy Truck Auction in the country. Every other Wednesday, heavy truck buyers and sellers from across the world merge to determine the wholesale value of used Freightliners, Mack's, Volvo's, Harvester's, Kenworth's and Peterbilt's and more including trailers. 4)Several high profile successful truck dealership groups have a major presence in the Fort Wayne area. -Palmer Truck Group (Kenworth, GMC Medium Duty) focus on Custom ordered Kenworth trucks for individuals and small fleets ...and Van Line O/O big rides. -Discover Volvo (Volvo, used trucks) -Wise International Truck Group (International Harvester) -Whiteford Truck Group (Sterling) 5) Several strong locally owned new and used heavy truck dealerships - Fort Wayne Truck and Trailer (access to nearly any type of truck made) -T & R Truck Sales -Fort Wayne Mack -M & R Truck Sales truckDoctor |
Today Massive GMC Chevy light duty truck plant. Advance Truck Plant International Truck Engineering Headquarters All 4 major custom truck sleeper manufactures in Fort Wayne or North East Indiana area. and a large portion of the old line suppliers of truck components still surround the Fort Wayne area. and more people who have made a living with trucks Speciality Trucks, products and Services bucket trucks, truck cranes, pressure digger trucks, digger derrick trucks January 2003 Blufton, In. I just found the neatest company; NESCO in Bluffton, In. NESCO puts special bodies on the back of trucks then, rents, leases or even sells them. I meet with Rob, the owner and a few of the sales people and later left totally impressed. If you are looking for; bucket trucks, truck cranes, pressure digger trucks, digger derrick trucks or strange trucks with nearly every type of unusual body including rodder - puller and scrapper's, check out NESCO's web site ...I thought the people and their approach to what they do, to be a great example of innovative win-win business practices. They are, I believe, yet another credit to this areas expertise in providing truck related business services to the nation. LD Custom Sleeper Manufactures Another great company near Fort Wayne that serves a national market is a small one that builds the bulk of the custom sleepers for the CS trucks I sell. Check out ARI located in the historic Amish community of Shipshewana. I have known and done business with several of their key people for maybe 10 years. I believe this young crew has advanced the quality of the custom sleeper by a light year or so. Check out their web site at ARI Legacy custom sleepers. LD Truck Auction What can I say about Fort Wayne's famous truck auction? Well, the auction is held every other Wednesday. For over 15 years, people congregate from all over the nation and the world to witness and buy from a pool of the several hundred medium duty and heavy duty trucks typically offered at each sale. If the prices of used trucks prices are rising or falling ...you will see it first here. (the Rothchilds made a lot of money by knowing which way the markets were moving ...FIRST) http://www.truck-auction.com/. LD Tom Ruble sells quite a few used, imported from Canada, Kenworth and Peterbilt heavy duty trucks. They are another local area company that has thrived, serving the nation for some 30 years. |
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