Worked a deal on this little trailer more than a year ago, and finally brought it home last night. I thought it was an original telephone company splicing trailer, but now I'm not so sure. It has Model T spoke wheels (identical to my FIL's '26 coupe), all body nuts are square, all suspension nuts are castle nuts with safety wires. My wife and I have searched all over for info regarding the manufacturer, American Coach Body Company in Cleveland Ohio, but can't find anything conclusive. This is obviously a utility trailer of some sort built/used in the mid 20's through early 30's based on the Model T wood spoke wheels. Regardless of its origins (which we'd still like to learn about) we're going to restore it --minus the wood spoke wheels-- to pull behind our A sedan. Anyone seen anything like this before? I'll post some better pictures tomorrow afternoon. This little trailer has us intrigued.
Nice find, do you think it would look better with the right pair of period correct fenders? If this is the before, Id sure like to see the after resto pic's.
That thing is really neat. I'm kind of amazed that it has lasted for 80 years in mostly stock condition, without someone screwing it up. Must have lived a sheltered life. cool find.
how many coats of paint? does it have it's original paint scheme buried under the spray paint? if you lightly sand a small section,you might see a logo or some design on the side.
Old milk or bread delivery maybe...??? If the bottom compartment is for ice I'd put money on milk delivery. JOE
Neat little trailer. Out of curiousity I did a GIS and came up with this guy. I guess he bought the American Coach and Body Company of Cleveland and moved it to St. Louis. HTH. http://www.mccabepowers.org/history/jjp.html
Is that the original Roach Coach?? It looks like a lunch cart. Is it all metal construction? What is that on the roof, they look like chimneys. Why the trap door on the bottom, is there one on the back end. Like JYD and DrJ suggested it could be for ice. What else would you put down there, is it for hot coals or hot horse dung!?!? I've been around antiques all my life and I've never seen anything like it. Please post up some more pics, that thing is very interesting.
Here in Houston we have some hombres pulling them with a bicycle selling tacos out of them. Cool find.
I was a cable splicer for Ma Bell from 1970-2002 and all of our trailers (pole trailers, cable dollies) etc. had the pintle hitch . The old timers used to tell me they had splicer trailers back in the old days,but I don't remember them. That thing is cool .
The pintle type hitch is standard for Model T's. Every T hitch that I've ever seen has been pintle type, so that doesn't indicate military usage. That said, it does look like ammo wagons that I've seen.
Whatever it is, is is a very neat little trailer! The werid floating hand kinda freaks me out though.....
Wow! We didn't expect this much interest. Thanks for all of the help, and with your help we've been chasing leads all morning. Haven't really found too much info, but I'll post some pics we took this morning. Food delivery is certainly a possibility. Ice could have very well been put in the bottom to keep food cold, but I doubt it was designed for coal or wood fire heating as its all just sheet metal and there's nowhere for smoke to escape. On the left side there are four small containers with hinged lids built it... almost like relish trays for a hot dog cart or something, LOL, but the bottom of them is not sealed. Maybe a dish was placed in here for food? Or maybe the cart isn't food related at all. The cart is divided left from right inside. The left side is only 1/4 of the interior, the right side is 3/4 and much more spacious. Also, the piece on the top has me quite perplexed and I've attached some photos. I hadn't previously seen the tag on the top right of the right side door. I've taken a detail pic, maybe you all can read it a little better than I can. I hesitate to take carb cleaner or sand paper to it as I don't want to destroy what's under the paint. If I could read the patent number we could probably Google the US Patent Office and get all of the details we ever wanted. Here's some more pics...
I'm thinking some sort of food cart. The way it's designed and the metal construction would seem to indicate that. If it were a tool cart, you'd have more compartments, I would think. Right now, it's a home for wasps! You see those damn nests???
LIGHTLY sand the part with the raised letters. On the top it looks as if a round container of some sort was placed up there. I say that,because in the pic you see the outline of something that was once there. And the pic of the label,the paints looks like it's already falling off. A little paint stripper will take care of that!
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/11/28/make-trailer-from-defunct-auto/ Yeah I found this while searching... A lot of the Modern Mechanix stuff is very cool! Still haven't found anything that even resembles his trailer though. Cool little trailer!
the thing on top looks like it was designed to hold paper napkins in place. it looks like it has a finger hole on one of the squares, and the outline of the round thing could be form some kinda paper weight. just a thought. And i guess a nopkin box like that would work sort of like a tissue box works today.
I wondered about it being a street vendor cart, but I've never seen one with a tow hitch, only a handle about waist high. The frame would be too low for all but my six year old to push around, and it's pretty heavy even empty. Took my BIL and I all of our might to load it into my pickup. The "thingy" on top is pretty heavy duty, much too heavy for a napkin holder, LOL. Man I LOVE that COE and 5th wheel! Reminds me of some pictures Larry Wood showed me a few years ago of a cool touring rig he was building! Anyone else wanna chime in on cleaning the tag up so I can read it? Just nervous to hit it with sandpaper... guess I could start with some 220 or finer. I think I can just chip some of the existing paint off of it but I'm afraid of damaging it. HAMB trailer historians rock! Thanks for all of the help. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever find another like it, even on the internet.
You could take a piece of paper and a crayon with the paper peeled off. Put the paper over the tag, then take the crayon and rub it sideways over the paper and see if you can get some letters to make sense. Maybe wax paper? But I don't know if the crayon would mark on it. Just a thought...
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