Diamond T Trucks from an article by Rolland Jerry

“A truck doesn’t have to be homely,” C.A.Tilt always claimed. He was right dead right. Tilt was president of the Diamond T Motor Car Company Chicago and he believed that passenger car styling and comfort features had a big place in the truck world. It was a novel concept at the time when trucks were angular and as beautiful as cast iron could make them.
Putting his theories to work Tilt evolved a range of stylish medium and heavy-duty vehicles witch consistently out-sold competitors during the lean depression years. In fact hard times produced record sales for the Chicago manufacture while the rest of the industry couldn’t switch to raked and veed radiators and windshields fast enough. Tilt demonstrated that customers for trucks were like everyone else in liking a little sizzle along with their steak. So did truck drivers, no mistaking that.
Tilt pulled of a Cinderella of sorts in reshaping Diamond Ts though this isn’t to say that the pre-Cinderella models were the ugliest ducklings in the truck world. A flair for styling backed by a sound engineering and a good finish were important elements in a campaign, which pushed Diamond T sales to its heights in the 1930s.
The decade and a bit between, say, 1928 to 1940 saw big changes at Diamond T, in fact the company’s Golden Years in my estimation. The interval marked a change in the status for the Chicago manufacturer The Diamond T had been “just another make” in pre-styling days, but the new emphasis on appearance pushed the firm in to the front ranks of the industry and Diamond T never looked back.
The company’s sales point up what I mean. In 1927 only some 1855 trucks went to American customers, certainly no great shakes at Diamond T was out sold by such rival assemblers as Federal and Brockway. Even Stewart, a minor make comparatively, did almost as well with sales of 1,548 trucks in that year. Diamond T wasn’t even in the running with the industries Big Guns, like Mack, White and International.
But look what happened. Diamond T closed out 1933 perhaps one of the bleakest year and the bottoming out of the depression with record sales of 4,139 trucks in the United States, of course in addition to vehicles for Canada and export markets. Sales in 1935 climbed to 6,454 units; by now Diamond T was out selling many rivals of the rate of 2 and 3 to 1including Mack and White. Only International and the big three sold more understandable with their domination of the market through sheer volume.
Diamond T’s big hold on its part of the marketplace essentially customers for medium and heavy-duty trucks astonished the truck word. Here was a big Michigan – not even a big Michigan or eastern-based outfit – witch apparently could do no wrong and was selling trucks hand over fist. Other manufactures were having it rough in the mid-1930swhen sales dipped below the survival point.
There were a number of reasons why rivals were having their problems. One was that their trucks fell short of Diamond T’s good looks. The Diamond T that attracted Depression era buyers was the striking job’ though there had been good looking Diamond T’s earlier and there’d be more in later years. For instance, Tilt apparently found his inspiration for the model 216 (a deluxe 1 ½ tonner in 1931) from the Duesenberg. This truck featured a slightly veed radiator shell and shutters clearly patterned after the Big J, not to mention the configuration of the headlights, fenders and a bumper expressing the same theme origins.
Diamond T’s big impact on the truck market arrived with 1933 and the company’s new Model 211SF. Announced in July, it was a striking 11/2 tonner priced at a low $595 f.o.b. Chicago, though the stylish new cab was an extra cost option. Now that Tilt had definitely proven that a truck didn’t have to be homely – the new job aped passenger car styling in every way, including such innovations in the truck world as a veeded two-piece windshield and sweeping, skirted fenders.
He described his efforts a “V-Form” styling, and of course this also applied to the new raked radiator with its distinctive grill bars. Another detail was the provision of top opening side hood panels secured by plated clamps, a styling feature drawn from earlier Diamond Ts. Overall the job was distinctive and appealing in every way.
The cosmetics were backed by sound, worthwhile mechanical and comfort features. For instance, much attention was paid to improve ventilation through a complex of vents in the walls of the cab near the toe bords, and both windshields opened through hand cranks. Carefully planed seating and a grouped instrument cluster were other driver aids.
The cab was a sturdy all steel units built by the McLaughlin Body Company, long a supplier of cabs to Diamond T’s specs and designs. The windshield was raked at 11 degrees and the top – Diamond T’s “Armored Dome” – was closed in by a pressed steel roof, not the canvas duck that customary for truck cabs. Doors on the new job opened from the front initially, but there was a quick switch to the safer (and better looking) rear-opening doors by 1934
Another change was the width of the cab. It was offered originally with two-or three men seating, the latter becoming standard equipment with the adoption of the cab on larger and heavier Diamond Ts. In fact Tilt described the stylish 11/2 tonner as the first of a new series of trucks, which would share his v-form motif. These duly appeared in capacities to 3 tons and by 1934 4 and 5 toners were offered with the new cab and sheet metal too.
Oddly’ There was another cab offered at this time, a rather upright and angular structure with less attractive lines than the V-Form cab with its Vee-type windshield. This was the “standard” cab, as opposed to the more expensive streamline units. When customers ordered it they didn’t get the new-skirted fenders either, only ordinary open fenders any different than the rest of the industry. Very few of these jobs were sold, what was the point in buying a Diamond T if one didn’t benefit by the new styling and streamlining, albeit at slight extra cost.
Apparently there were skeptics in the industry who doubted that Tilt himself as president and administrative head of the company (also it’s owner), could have been quite so intimately involved with the engineering and the styling of his trucks. But he was, and deeply so. Diamond T personnel readily pointed “The Boss” as the inspiration and the author of the company’s achievements. And so there’d be no mistaking the point, a statement was issued; “All Diamond T designs are personally originated and carried to completion by Mr. C.A. Tilt, President.” Obviously, he was as capable in the engineering department as he was in the front office.
Tilt was as proud of his trucks as the customers who lined up to buy them. Commenting in 1936 he said, “Coupe-style cabs, decent seats and windshield wipers make for a better and safer drive… at the same time we began to make trucks smarter in appearance by giving them a real paint job with snap and sparkle. Then we replaced the old-fashioned sheet iron fenders with good looking die-formed fenders… for a truck as smart as any passenger car, differing only in that it has a more massive and sturdy appearance.”
The process had started in the late 1920’s when Diamond T let the industry in reshaping the appearance of medium and heavy-duty vehicles. There was much to improve too. Trucks of the day were heavy and awkward in every way, with much exposure of unlovely details. Springs, axles, and running board brackets were all in plain view, practical and durable beyond doubt of but awfully scant in appearance. But who cared what a truck looked like, all it had to do was “tote the bale” or lug a load of coal? Appearances didn’t count.
They did to Tilt and his interest showed in Diamond T’s from 1927 and so on. He closed in the unsightly gap between the cab and running board with a neat skirt panel, which cleaned up appearances enormously. The he modified the hood, adding side panels, which opened from the top and were secured by distinctive clamp hold-downs.
Subsequent models continued the theme. Horizontal hood louvres and big twin bar spring bumpers enhanced good looks, as did drum-type headlights and swanky cowl lights.
Lots of heavy nickel plating (with chrome later) provided highlights against a first-class finish on the cab and sheet metal. Tilt couldn’t do much to hide or disguise the massiveness of big cast steel wheels and solid tires, but somehow they didn’t seem quite so overbearing on a Diamond T. His cabs offered new standards of driver comfort and protection, also ease of entry with their front opening doors. No detail was overlooked in the quest for handsome vehicles, which performed as well as they looked.
Sales charts proved that Tilt was right, appearances did count in truck sales and customers liked high fashion. Diamond T sold 3,590 trucks to American buyers in 1929; thought admittedly there was a bit of a slump in sales until the new job in 1933. Even so, Diamond T fared better than competitors in bad years. The firms sales fell off to only 2,250 trucks in 1932, but it was good by comparison with what happened to Autocar (1,015), Brockway (752), while Mack breathed awfully hard on a volume of only 1,425 units that year. Diamond T managed to hold its own and then some even when the going was roughest.
Truck buff Elliot Kahn recalls the impression the new 1933 Diamond T’s made on him when he visited the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1933 – The Century of Progress: “The trucks were finished in bright red with green trim and they were displayed on Michigan Avenue just across the street from the Stevens Hotel, and what an attractive sight they were floodlighted at night.” Kahn says half a dozen or so of the new jobs figured in the arresting display.
The Diamond T was an assembled unit but the company never claimed otherwise or evaded the issue by stating that components were “own” in published specs, in fact a fairly common practice among some truck assemblers at the time. All the familiar names were there – Hercules engines, Timken and Clark axles, plus Warner transmissions. McLaughlin Body supplied the cabs and Maremont, a Chicago bodybuilding outfit, met many Diamond T needs for panel, stake, and van bodies. Diamond T’s mix of components was pretty good; the trucks were covered by a comprehensive and generous warranty by 1940, 100,000 miles or a year.
If Hercules produced engines for Diamond T, the self-same engines were not available to other truck manufacturers. Engines for Diamond T differed in a number of ways, essentially the specs, displacements, and in carburetion and manifolding. The accessories provided another area of differences.
These blocks – all L-heads with 7-bearing crankshafts – were cast from a particularly close-grained analysis of chrome-molly denim-nickel iron, which Diamond T claimed was tougher and more durable than ordinary gray iron. One can be sure that Hercules bent over backwards in meeting Diamond T demands for exclusiveness, for who else was buying 4,000 to 5,000 engines annually during the depths of the Depression? Exactly. No one else was, so it’s safe assumption that what Diamond T got!
Other Diamond T engineering features matched what had been achieved in appearances. A number of greasing or lube points were eliminated in the 1930s with Diamond T’s adoption of rubber-bushed springs, which eliminated the need for rear shackles. Slipper-end springs afforded variable rate suspension in some degree, though this was more marked in later models employing springs with higher arch.
In general, Diamond T’s of the 19302s employed long and low cambered springs for good road holding and reduced height. The company’s new line of Coe’s announced in 1937 exhibited first-rate chassis engineering, much attention to suspension details, a roll-out engine mounted in a sub-frame, and a choice of straight or drop type frames. An exceptionally wide track front axle assured good steering lock and, as always, an impressive commanding appearance was part of the picture too.
Diamond T claimed the Coe’s distinctive good looks were drawn from steam lined diesel locomotives then putting in an appearance on American railroads and setting new styling trends in the process. The Coe’s proved good sellers with customers who needed an eye-stopping unit to mate with a stylish van body. Department stores bought a lot of them for furniture vans. So did movers.
The company rounded out its line of COE-type units with a new range of cab-forward models. These were lighter jobs and they appealed to buyers who wanted something between a full COE and a conventional type with a hood. These units found many customers, but like the COE they failed to reappear in the immediate post-war years, though other COE models appeared in time.
Weight reduction was another objective and Diamond T pursued it in a novel way. Diamond T’s for 1936 employed frames in which thickness of the main side rails varied with the wheelbase unit the frame rail was ¼-inch thick. When he ordered the same job in an intermediate length the thickness was 7/32-inch, or only 3/16-inch when the shortest wheelbase was specified. The idea was to proportion the frames according to the load; heavier frames didn’t need extra reinforcing, while the frames on lighter vehicles were free of a weight penalty.
Tilt also applied his talents to the bodies on Diamond T’s, not content with merely redefining the cabs and the sheet metal. And what bodies they were, wowing fleet men and operators in 1934 with another sensation from Diamond T. They were stake bodies but unlike anything that had been seen before. Instead of the rough and exposed chassis under the bed or platform, this area was skirted or enclosed by a drop panel. Neat, streamlined fenders swept over and around wheels.
The upper stake sides of the body were flush with top of the cab for a continuous “flow” or “streamline”, collectively an appearance that couldn’t be beaten. Initially the company refused to release dimensions to prevent pirating of the new design by bodybuilders, but the body was copied anyway and immediately established a vogue for drop-panel, streamlined body stake bodies. Diamond T offered the swank stake-and-racks on a factory-supplied basis, also a few streamlined van bodies to boot.
Tilt had been right again. Not only did the customers want attractive, eye-stopping vehicles, but they also wanted the bodies to go with them. And they were willing to pay extra too, since these were premium bodies not to be confused with the general run of rough-and-ready stake bodies priced around $150 – one hundred and fifty dollar bodies they most certainly were not!
The 1933-1935 V-form Diamond T’s were followed up by a new range of trucks in 1936. These were striking in their way as the earlier jobs had been, with big aggressive bow-fronted grills in company with new and broad fenders. And now the windshield was raked to a steep 30-degrees, presumably a touch of Chrysler Airflow. The dash panel with its large diameter “airplane type” instruments was largely a carryover from 1935, an electric clock and all (then unheard of in a truck).
The new jobs perpetuated a Diamond T novelty of several years, namely the availability of many optional items, typically fender parking lights and oversize chrome hubcaps. Diamond T offered these like automobile dealers did on passenger cars, knowing full well that customers would usually opt for a deluxe unit, as opposed to humdrum “standard equipment.” Options like these weren’t general in the truck world in 1936 and Diamond T prospered to the tune of 8,750 trucks American buyers that year, the best yet by a wide margin.
Diamond T exploited the idea still further with a new selection of trucks in 1938. These featured a different grill configuration, not sharply veed but no longer raked or bowed. Wider and deeper fenders provided another change, though the cab was carried over from the 1936 series. In line with Diamond T’s big interest in options, special Super Deluxe models were offered with a galaxy of horn rings, chrome wheel discs, fender parking lights, and a wide assortment of trim décor, including a burnished, engine-turned instrument panel.
The 1938-style cab and sheet metal survived until 1950. At that, I think the cab lasted a bit longer with the use on some of the company’s heaviest units. These had to come into the line in 1940 or 1941 as extra heavy-duty models.
Another aspect of the interval between 1930 and 1940 was the very high standard of Diamond T advertising and sales catalogues. These were the handiwork of Storrs Baldwin, the company’s advertising manager. Baldwin, and outstanding photographer, took many of the color photos used in Diamond T advertisements, and of course he was responsible for the literature.
Early catalogues were high class affairs indeed, using art renderings of the trucks. Artistic yet effective, they were a far cry from the usual “nuts and bolts”, dry as dust specs deemed adequate by other manufacturers. The idea was to backstop a high class vehicle with high class literature. Packard, Cadillac, and Pierce-Arrow couldn’t have bettered what Baldwin achieved. They’re nice pieces in any collection, as literature fans know.