02/09/2006 @ 04:13:35: Mac Trucks: White Motor Trucks
Here is something helpful to consider about several different "makes" of trucks. During the 1950's through the 1980's, White Motor Corporation was a virtual dynamo of corporate take-overs in the truck world. This resulted in several different trucks having the same cabs and many of the same components, but different hoods and sales organizations. For example, Autocar introduced the Drivers Cab on its trucks in the early 1950's. This same cab was later used on Diamond REO trucks, White, Western Star, and White Western Star trucks. As White took over each manufacturer, each truck started to look like other trucks in the 'family'. Diamond REO itself was a combination of Diamond T and REO trucks.
Also, the Drivers Cab was in production from, oh 1952 or thereabouts until about 1984. Externally there were very little changes to the cab itself, with the grille providing the only significant means of identifing which make or vintage. Some trucks went years with no distinguishing changes at all, making specific year identification impossible from photos.
My apologies for those of you who see that this ties in with some other threads in other sections of the forum. I don't want to add fuel to that fire, but did want to point out that sometimes you can only get close. I also build scale models, and there are several possible choices that could be used to model this group of trucks.