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24/09/2010
By MURRAY HUBBARD
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Any trip in the Australian outback is likely to turn up a number of wonders ... like this 1933 REO Speedwagon. We found this classic flatbed at the Truck Museum in Winton, in far central west Queensland. For many people the only REO Speedwagon they know is an American rock band, who liked the name so much they called themselves after a truck.
I confess that at a younger age I always though an REO Speedwagon was some sort of fast sports car. As our images show, I could not have been further from the truth. The company REO was started in 1904 by Ransome E. Olds, perhaps better known as the founder of Oldsmobile. While REO as in the band pronounce the name R-E-O, the car company went by the more traditional way as in Rio, the capital of Brazil.
There's no doubt the `Speedwagon' moniker was one of the more adventurous names given to any automobile back when the first REO Speedwagon hit the road in 1915. At that time trucks were usually derivatives of cars, with the best example being Ford's Model-T. About this time half the world's passenger cars were Model-Ts, so many light trucks were also Model-Ts. As we know, one thing the Model-T was not famous for was speed. Turn it into a light truck and burden it under a heavy load and what performance there was, suffered.
In this era trucks were lucky to make 15 miles per hour, just over 22 km/h, and if the roads were crook and the loads heavy even that modest forward movement was optimistic. So when REO developed this vehicle they had one goal: build a tough, high-performance wagon that would give business a faster alternative. With that goal, and the performance to match, the REO Speedwagon just about named itself.
From memory the first Speedwagon I saw was around 10 years ago when a collection of about eight REO cars and trucks went for sale on the Gold Coast, part of a collection built up by an old timer who lived on Tamborine Mountain, in the Gold Coast hinterland.
They are a rarity today for obvious reasons: the huge amount of timber used in the cabin and tray. That's what makes this Speedwagon so special with its fire engine red paint job balanced with the extensive use of beautiful timber, including the tool boxes on either side under the tray.
Even though the Speedwagon had an optional six cylinder engine from 1925, this variant still uses a four cylinder powerplant hooked up to a three speed transmission. Even though Reo built it's name on cars, by 1933 the company's future really only had one direction: commercial vehicles. In 1933 for the first time Reo sold more trucks than cars – 3042 trucks to 2623 cars – modest figures, even given the timing of the Great Depression.
REO Speedwagon, the band, formed in 1967 and by 1971 released their first album, which was self-titled, adding extra impetus to the evocative name. Winton's Diamantina Heritage Truck and Machinery Museum, is small, but well worth a visit, and is located at Lot 2, Hughenden Road, Winton, on the edge of town.
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