Off Topic. My Favorite Truck.

Death To Valiants.
Ray in CT

 

It is still around, I see it every once in a while. Some guy found it on a movie back lot and bought it, I use to see it parked on Magnolia Blvd. in the city of Burbank.


CBB

 

A trivia question. Do you know what the mirror on the top of the hood is for?

 

The emblem on the truck in that pic is too new. It should be the old square emblem. Awesome none the less!!

 

to see the color of the smoke coming out of the stack. something about how rich it was running.
ray in ct

 

I read that they had a "mechanism" to pilot the truck straight without a driver. I'm guessing that's a part of it??

 

I like them old Whites better. They look like '30s Packards or something

 

Forgive me, but what is this truck from?

 

Duel.

 

I knew it looked familiar....lack of sleep... I'll blame that.

 

...I thot the real "Duel" truck had no grille emblem, and I think the hood mirror is so driver can check for low clearance fot that stack.

 

Great movie.....

 

"Get that truck outta my way, you miserable fat head."

 

I couldn't help it.

 

I take it that` s the truck from Duel! It seems to me that in the movie it had a larger and taller front push bumper on it, or am I losin` it! Cool movie!

 

The mirror on the rad is to watch the "flame" on the stack. When these were running hot in the day, you could produce a flame out of the stack. Kinda an early preformance thing. And.........the Peterbuilt emblem is correct for the '55 Peterbuilt.

 

Tuff Tin wins the coveted prize. My '66 would shoot a green and yellow flame about 6" out of the stack. Hold your foot on it and scuff a piston and blow shards thru the turbo. You had to be a pretty good hand to drive a hot rod ***mins in the old days, huh, Tuff Tin?

 

Thanks Tuff Tin. When was the last year for the square emblem?

 

When I was running those old trucks we didn't have turbos or blowers with a couple of exceptions like the old Iron Lung 275 and 300's plus GMC has run blowers for years but the old ***mins ran naturely aspirated motors. When we would take out or add shims to the pump or stretch the pump spring to get more fuel so as to get more horsepower, often done on the front fender along side the road, then we had the stack mirror to give a visual as how the fuel was burning. Black smoke was normally from under reving or lugging the motor but when it preformed real will you could get a large flame out of the top of the stack sometimes as high as 2 feet. The blown GMC's just didn't produce but could "burp" fuel out of the stack.

I don't recall any square Peterbuilt emblems. I mostly drove Kenworth for 40 years but I did a stint in a 53 Pete conventional years ago and I think it had the oval emblem and the filled or skirted fenders. The early Pete's had the logo "CAST" in to the radiator top tank but just in script, no oval.

 

I thought I remembered seeing a '46 or '47 at Walcott Iowa that had a square emblem. Thanks for the info Tuff Tin, good stuff!!

 

Another trivia question.....................This can be like the American Grafitti post.
Who was the now famous actor driving the rig?

 

There is a movie called battletruck, it had a pretty cool truck, i couldnt find it though. Mad max 2 and three had some real stinky tough trucks also

 

55 Pete. You guys are oldtimers. I haven't heard anyone mention blowing a flame out of the stack for a long time. I know someone who claimed doing it with their old Freightliner COE but I never saw it happen. This is probably no longer allowed by the authorities? I'd like to get an engine into that state of tune.

Better to have a little black soot than gray exhaust. The exhaust in that photo looks to be enhanced with an airbrush. A moving truck would not produce a straight verticle plume like that.

FWIW the tank trailer looks like a US ARMY type from the 40's or 50s.

Arf arf arf, yap yap yap...

 

Could it be Harrison Ford? What? I never would have guessed Keanu Reeves!

 

Come on man! Any driver worth his salt knows that Dennis Weaver was the mad man behind the wheel.

Driving over the road for so many years you could tell everytime that "Duel"
was shown or re-run as the cars would start flippin you off and donig all sorts of stupid things for retaliation. (sp)

 

Weaver was driving the little Valiant. Are you saying he was driving the truck too? That changes the whole movie into a psychologcal thriller. Think about this, "Man's desperate attempt to escape from his "brutal primative other" nature as embodied by "the truck".

What would Carl Jung say? "The Super-ego fearing anihilation by the ID."
Freud would doubtlessly say. "The truck is symbolic of the cigar. It is brown, mottled and smells. Both are the external manifestation of the *****."

With his German accent it probably sounded like: " Zee struck eez zymbolik uf zee zighar. Eat eez braun, mwaatlid undt schmelz. Polth ar zee eggschtuurnool manneefiztatshun uf zee putz."

Egad! I've just startled myself out of my coma!

You've been watching too many French Art-House movies Tuff Tin.

 

I've seen square badges on '39s and '48s. A friend had a '52 but the emblems were swipped before he got it.

A friend of mine has a recording of an old ***mins with an Iron Lung. All scream, wheeze and gear drive noise. Makes gooseflesh on my arms.

So… who drove the tanker in duel?

 

This truck is sitting by my house. I posted a pic of it in another thread two weeks ago.

 

looks like franks avatar

 

Another photo