This shot from the mid-late 1960’s shows a Peterbilt 350/351 from the late 1940’s in a quintessentially California shot: a rest area near Lebec, with towering bare California oak trees in the short winter. The Peterbilt is of course a classic West Coast truck, and would never have been seen east of the Rockies, unless a driver got seriously lost. This one has a Mercury sleeper attached.
Peterbilt was created out of the pioneering Fageol Motors truck line, which was the dominant brand there in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s hard to say for sure what is under its tall, long hood, but from the dark stain on the fuel tank, almost certainly a diesel, and most likely a Cummins at that. Note that it too has a single cylinder gas engine on the front of its trailer, which we learned the other day was to drive a fan to circulate the cold air from the ice that was stored at the front.
Cool!
Just thinking of that rest stop gives me PTSD 🙂 Spent some time there trying to figure out our next move, returning from our first Lemons race at Buttonwillow. My 1993 Audi S4 had suffered a blowout at 100 mph, the air suspension on Nick’s Land Rover tow pig had just decided to sit down with a mighty WHOOSH, the race car was blowed up, and that is when our other teammates A4 decided to have the typical HPFP pump fail. The caravan of the wounded…
Reminds me of the 1955 Peterbilt 281 used in the Spielberg tv movie Duel. The original was destroyed in the climactic scene, so when the movie was expanded for theatrical release, a similar 1961 Peterbilt 351 (with a 1946 tanker) served as a stand-in for additional scenes. That one survives.
Those were some of the first ‘100%’ Peterbilts, the earlier models had a lot of Fageol parts in them. The line between the last Fageols and first Peterbilts is a blurry one, and further confusing matters is the fact that in the early days Peterbilt often remanufactured older Fageols, resulting in some interesting hybrids.
Almost certain the rig in the picture is Cummins powered, possibly one of the ‘iron lung’ supercharged versions popular on the West Coast then. Another ‘California’ feature is the 5 hole Alcoa front wheels, and I would be willing to wager there were no brakes on that front axle.
You are probably correct about the lack of front brakes. The tanker fleet I worked for in the late 70’s did not have front brakes until they were required. A lot of over the road tractors did not have front brakes. Somewhere around 1975 regulations changed and about 1980 further changes were made to fix some loop holes. There were limiters valves on some tractors with front brakes. Another popular hack was either removing the front brakes or plugging air lines to keep the front brakes from working.
Bobtailing a tractor has always been a challenging experience.
Without front brakes it was very easy to spinout.
With front brakes it was very easy to loose your steering because the front wheel would lock up.
I once did a 360 spin on a four lane road, I tapped the brakes coming out of a curve approaching a light. No harm no foul but that was a real shock. Thankfully this happened around midnight so traffic was minimal.
When you loose your steering because the front brakes have locked is a very uneasy experience.
The advent of anti-lock brakes really changed the braking on tractors. Now there were limiters installed on the rear brakes of tractors that reduced the pressure when you were not pulling a trailer.
Agreed about the likely lack of front brakes on this. I saw that very commonly, and your explanation as to the pros and cons make perfect sense. Having had a truck or two go sideways on me braking down a hill on wet asphalt due to the lack of any load in the back, I can only imagine what it must have been to brake a bobtail without front brakes.
A jake lock has similar consequences drive axles lockup trailers keep pushing and sideways you go, drifting, a handfull of trailer brake cures it or stand on the loud pedal and pull it all straight again either works but if you got jake lock heading into a tight turn the trailer brake option is best more speed doesnt help.
Braking bobtail in the wet it doesnt work well even with front brakes, getting moving bobtail on wet roads is a challenge sometimes trying to ease 600+ hp into movement cross locks help,
Huge blindspots on that old Pete thankfully that issue has been eased somewhat on conventionals its just a pity day cabs havent grown a little in length and footwells havent grown much either.
Ah, a big ole “Pete”. Beautiful.
The braking regulations were effective Jan 1, 1975, as Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 121. 121 is still in effect with many changes over the years, many around ABS. When I worked as an engineer in the industry from ’77 to ‘82, 121 and 302 (interior flammability) were so important that I still remember those numbers decades later. 121 was quite controversial – this DOT memo from 1974 makes for interesting reading https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0005/1561591.pdf
Geeze o’ Pete (as it were); that hood looks as long as a VW!
Thanks for the explanation regarding the front brakes, it cleared up a mystery for me.
Every time I watched the movie Duel, you can see in some of the high speed shots there are no front brakes on the truck, I always wondered about that.
I don’t think this was a thing in Australia back then.
Great picture of a classic .
Good history in the comments too, thanx for sharing the knowledge .
The i5 rest stop in Lebec is still going strong decades later .
-Nate