Even the most popular vehicles of the immediately post-war period tend to be much harder to find in the wild than the always-popular mid-60s favorites such as the first generation Ford Mustang. For example, cars such as this lovely stock Ford Sedan, potentially a 1948, is old enough to be a rare sight on the streets even as a weekend cruiser.
But one of the most difficult types of vehicles to spot in the open is the antique commercial vehicle. One of the most surreal moments of car spotting I have ever encountered was accidentally stepping back in time by discovering a public street prepped for a period film shoot. Here, we see Walton Street in downtown Atlanta transformed into a version of itself straight out of 1949. Most of the vehicle props that had not been removed by the time I wandered up and were of the especially elusive heavy-duty truck variety.
This 1947 International KB5 with a unique period cargo upfit is one of the most unlikely vehicles I’ve ever seen parked casually on the street; even if being part of a staging. After all, it takes a special kind of enthusiast to own a large, vintage commercial vehicle. The few that would endeavor to own something this niche are almost certainly not going to street park it downtown. Outside of certain specialized shows and museums, such long-vanished beasts of burden are rarely seen.
This truck is the first year for the International KB, a lightly updated International K series. The Ks were a very late pre-war design that was only built in significant numbers after the fighting stopped. As such, it’s a unique anachronism even in its updated form. However, due to this vehicle’s cab being integrated into the new bodywork from the upfit, the old school styling is less apparent. The original design featured a split windscreen and narrow, rounded cab with running boards.
The old school coach built upfit is nearly as much of an anachronism as the vehicle it is based on. The postwar period saw commercial vehicle bodies become much more standardized and even gained some OEM support compared to the small batch regional players of before. This step-through van design feels comparable to the modern step-van formula, though with significantly more challenging ingress and egress thanks to the high, flat load floor. International would be one of the first to popularize the formula with their ingenious Metro van first making its appearance in 1938.
However, a delivery van of this size with a step-through design and integrated cab would not be readily available by national players until quite a few years later.
You can readily spot the original International dash structure the flat sheet metal coachwork has been bolted to.
Bolted? I would have expected rivets for a design of this era. Perhaps the bolts were added in the restoration this vehicle has clearly undergone. Aside from a lightly demolished and clearly more modern driver’s seat, the vehicle is shockingly spotless, intact, and original.
What you cannot easily see in this photo is that there is a cargo fence only behind the driver. The passenger-side area is completely open all the way to the rear. You can view photos that show this arrangement on the website of the film prop company that rents out this interesting old truck. In fact, the company also rents out a 1948 and a 1949 of the heavier duty International KB6 with more conventional upfits. It’s the same film prop rental company that supplied the Checker Taxi I’d stumbled upon elsewhere in Atlanta.
The dual bifold rear door are quite baffling. The reflectors glued to the edges are on the movable portion since nearly every square inch of the rear opens up. However, I don’t see the advantages of this setup over more conventional double doors.
The rear load height is quite high for what appears to be intended as a short distance route truck. I pity the poor laborer hauling bulk cargo around in this vehicle in the days before pallets, forklifts, and widespread air conditioning. Though minimum wage back then was an inflation-adjusted $2.28 greater than it is today, you had less options if you threw your back out while unloading a crate of fresh bread. As someone who somewhat recently held a near-minimum wage job, I’d struggle to choose between the buying power and leaded gasoline-tinged air of 1947 and today’s worker’s comp and air conditioning.
It is indeed a rare treat to experience such a long-extinct class of coach-built delivery vehicle in its natural habitat. It is very different to see an old truck indoors at a museum versus parked on a street prepped to appear vintage, complete with old-style speed limit signs and dotted with phone booths. The only thing not period-correct on this International is its overall excellent condition; I, for one, am not complaining.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1958 International Metro – The Original And Greatest Step Van
Boy that ‘48 Ford looks absolutely ancient compared to the ‘49 that followed it just a year later. In all its storied history, the ‘49 Ford may just be the most important car of all. A smashing success for young HF II, who, with the help of Ernie Breech and the whiz kids, rescued the company from near bankruptcy under old man Henry. For all of his later foibles, HF II’s early years at the helm were nothing short of brilliant.
Both the Ford and International were clearly prewar designs. Yet the International wouldn’t change much for a decade as commercial vehicles were slower to adopt new styling trends and technology. They certainly are of a different era than the GMC flatbed lurking in the background.
Nice old hauler… did it have one of IH’s “Diamond” flat head 6 engines? The boatyard I worked in many years ago had what I think was a big “White Diamond” engine in the huge forklift that dated to the 40s. Love the ’46-48 Fords too.
KB-1 through KB-3 had the Green Diamond 214 L-head engine.
KB-5 had the GD 233.
KB-6 had the Blue Diamond 250 OHV engine, KB-7 the BD 269.
KB-8 had the Red Diamond 361 OHV engine.
KB-10 had the RD 401, KB-11 had the RD 451.
KB-12 had a Continental 586 inch OHV six. The rare KB-14 also had the Continental engine.
When the L-series arrived in 1950 the L-head Green Diamond engines were replaced by the OHV Silver Diamond. Later in the 1950s the Blue Diamond engines were replaced by the Black Diamond.
Not at all confusing! When International started making V-8s they wisely just called them large (LV) and small (SV).
What a great old truck! I can remember K and KB models still in service in the late ’60s/early 70s as farm and fire trucks. Rare to see these old beasts in the current work a day world but it does happen. About a year ago I stopped for gas and while the pump ran I heard a rumbling coming up the road and turned to see a B model Mack tandem axle dump truck tagged and working! FLASHBACKS! Trucks are my passion and today is my first time at this site. To be greeted with this K IH story made my day! Thanks, Jim
About 5 -8 years ago, someone in my hometown did scrap collection in a 50s Ford dump truck that looked and sounded like it was about to fall apart at any moment. Sadly I believe it has since been retired.
This international is definitely the oldest commercial vehicle I’ve ever seen outside of a museum. It certainly was a shock to see on a downtown street.
This website has many interesting reflections on old trucks. Scroll through the tabs at the top and you’ll find a reasonably well sorted collection of categories.
I love old commercial vehicles .
-Nate
To see a truck even half this old on a random street downtown is very unusual. Usually these only survive abandoned behind barns or in museums.
Growing up in China before its opening up in late 1970s, Jeifan CA-10, Chinese version of Zil-50, was the most common vehicle people saw on the street. And Zil-50 was originally from International Harvester K series truck getting into Soviet via Lends Lease during WW2. Since there were not many alternatives available, CA-10 was considered one of the best vehicles produced in China. Then China started importing Japanese trucks such as Hino, Isuzu and Nissan Diesel and Mitsubishi, they found out how advanced and reliable they were. BTW, Isuzu had the best reputation among them. Some Eastern European trucks were mixed bag, Skoda and Trata were good and outdated, IFE was OK, the Romania trucks were the worse, its reliability was worse than CA-10.
I believe that you’re referring to ZiL-150.
What a fantastic scene to come across. It does indeed take a special collector to keep up these old commercial vehicles. The sheer space they take up, the heaviness of the parts, hard to find parts and then the final insult of generally low values. Definitely a treat to see one outside a museum setting.
Great find! I’m glad you stopped and took pictures.
Those rear doors are interesting – never noticed doors like that before. It’s tough to find vintage pictures of the rear of commercial vehicles; ads and other material tend to show them from the front. If there are any unusual doors on this vintage of delivery truck, I’d expect it to be some sort of curb side cargo door, since city deliveries were much more common in the 1940s.
The dual bifold rear door are quite baffling.
Not to me. Almost certainly the outer halves were retained by a floor stop, so that just the two inner door halves were used in making deliveries from the rear, but the whole thing could be opened for loading or unloading at the dock.
Speaking of, the high floor on this truck would be the same level as regular big truck loading docks. Almost certainly this truck was not used for typical door-to-door type of delivery, but freight deliveries of mostly larger and heavier items, probably mostly to stores and businesses or appliances and such.
Close the front of the van body with a legal cargo barrier and insulate it on a TK Bedford chassis and it would be what I drove in the early 80s delivering 5000kg of butter daily hand unloaded 1 20kg carton at a time they changed the shape of the cartons to make it impossible to carry 3 at once, Yes I was fit back then.
Those bi-fold doors also allow you to fully open the doors in tight confines. At loading docks you could fully open the doors even with another truck parked next to you. One-piece doors require a much wider arc to swing around against the sides so that the driver can back to the dock.
That is an interesting body on the ‘Binder, I suspect the truck originally belonged to Railway Express Agency, sort of the UPS of their day. REA was basically a ‘last mile’ package delivery service that delivered railroad shipments from train to destination. They were very successful for many years until their business model became obsolete as railroads moved away from handling small shipments and parcels. Correct the truck’s body was ‘dock height’ to facilitate loading from a loading dock, but REA trucks often had to pick up freight directly from a box or express railcar (often REA owned) in small towns as well. REA trucks were often ‘cowl and chassis’ models with that unique box body:
https://classiccars.ride-ct.com/2024/07/18/vintage-rea-delivery-truck-finds-forever-home-in-museum/
I think you’re on to something. The body looks very similar. I don’t know why it would be a step through design for that purpose though with no hard division between the driver and cargo.
There’s no doubt this was an REA truck. I’m quite familiar with them; I had a friend who had a 1940s Ford version as a camper. The pass through was to make it easier to deliver small parcels to residences. They hauled all sorts of freight, from small to large, so they were used as both cargo trucks and delivery vans.
We’ve had a post on these trucks here before:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-for-sale/cc-for-sale-1950-chevrolet-4400-railroad-express-camper-how-many-barns-are-there-in-alaska/
Here’s a shot of one back in the day.
They were very common, not unlike UPS trucks today.
Yes, and REA used many different brands of chassis. I have seen Dodge, Ford, IH, Chevrolet, and possibly Studebaker.
Vintage set movies love these big trucks for street scenes as they are great for blocking out modern parts of the street.
It’s prominently advertised as a “blocker” on the film rental company’s website.
Great post, Mr W.
It’s perennially fascinating to me that there are folks who have the time (and sheer damn space) to deal with old commercial vehicles as restored pieces, yet they exist around the world. These sort of vehicles seemed so utterly charmless – perhaps even sometimes grim – in their time, that is, in any of their times, yet if I see a restored ’60’s or ’70’s commercial somewhere (my kid-time), I am immediately drawn to it.
When I saw the “prop hauler” headline, my first thought was of a truck designed to carry airplane propellers. It would actually make some sense: at the time, all commercial aviation was prop planes, with the DC-3 probably dominating, although planes like the Lockheed Electra would have been taking over. The 707 was a decade or so away. There may have been such a truck: I imagine there were flatbeds with some kind of jig to carry those massive and cumbersome propellers. I flew P-3 series turboprops in the Navy, and those props weighed over 1000lbs and had a 13.5′ arc. Obviously, that explains why my mind jumped to where most probably wouldn’t!
Anyway, I hope it wasn’t too much of a tangent… That is a pretty cool picture/scene to happen across. It seems like the 50s is a turning point in terms of car technology reaching a level such that the number of people willing to drive an old car (mostly recreationally) grows significantly as you get into the late 50s and 60s. Which makes driving something like that ’48 Ford that much more distinctive. I get the sense that cars from the 40s, and even 30s, aren’t necessarily that bad as reliable transportation. There are things pretty hard to live without, like hydraulic brakes, electric start, or a heater, and there’s more maintenance involved the older you go, but anyone with some mechanical aptitude would be able to get by. It’d be nice to see more people make the effort; it would be cool if this staged scene occurred spontaneously now and then.
From ’76 to ’84 my daily driver was a ’49 Chevy pickup, a 30year old vehicle at that time was rare. Today to see a pickup from the 70s as daily is not uncommon. I’m sure the advent of PS, PB, AT, AC, and a smoother ride, not to mention the sheer number built makes a difference. I still have my ’49 and hope soon it will be my daily driver again.