Memories for us old truckers

The visual differences.
39 to mid 40's the grille surrounds and cross pieces were all one piece.
Short grille indicates gas powered.
56 and up 3 piece grille surround.
Plus some 500 and 800 real early had a wrought iron grille with thin stamped badge.
You can see the differences below. All KW's in those years just looked old.

Late 30's Shovel Nose KW and a Fageol.

That thing above was a sweat box. Engine fan howling constantly, bees and bugs flying
in the windshield, when a driver left the yard he weighed 200 lbs by the end of the day
170 lbs. That WB beat him all to hell. The bugs landing in the drivers crotch and seat,
he spent a good amount of time swatting insects.

Anyone been around one of these? It is a 1960 S925, I have never seen another Kenworth like it around here but it sounds like most of them went to Australia. It has a 335 Cummins and a 5 &4, it is going to be restored by the new owner.

Yes I've seen a few, Yakima years ago. Really what your looking at is the idea for the T600 and T800.
A Kenworth engineer that was a neighbor to my brother told me the idea for the T series came from
the early S series. It doesn't take much imagination to see it.

Nice photos JPV! good find.

I kind of suspected that TS, makes perfect sense.

I saw one of those back in the late 70's. Only one I have ever seen. It was rigged out as a dump truck, and was in rural NW Mississippi. Now, after all these years, I know what it was.
Jeff

I sold my Freigtliner this week end . It was a bad deal trying to sell it i pray i got a little smarter from this deal. When i bought it i thought its to good to scrap but it had been setting for a long time and had went down hill. Then it took i think about a year before i got it moved messing with it on and off. I had alot of interest in it but it needed to be hauled and that was a problem for most. I had a guy drive 3 hours to look at it. He wanted it and returned this past week end to get it. His buddy had a drop deck with ramps and a dove tail. I had some thing bad happen just before they came that got my nerves on edge. They were ok guys but were afraid that they couldnt get down the gravel road with there truck so they parked down the road a half mile away on a corner facing down hill. The truck didnt have very good brakes so i said i would drive it . It wouldnt clime up onto the trailer and the after 2 trys i slid it of the rams and got hung up. I got my GMC with the winch and got it free . I told them we need to think this over or its going to get bad. We ended up winching the truck up on to the trailer and it went alot smother. No one got hurt and nothing was torn up and i learned or re learned a thing or two.

Single Axle with Single fuel tank Doug??

DMiller said:

Single Axle with Single fuel tank Doug??

Click to expand...

Its a tandem with one tank.

I should have parted it out and if the guy that bought it had not bought i was going to do but i dont have alot of free time so sellling it whole was the best deal.

In that photo the rear crossmember hasn't been king-pinned. That's unusual.

Especially with air ride.

Here's a eye sore.

Gives new meaning to this...

The truck had been taken care of most of its life. I never saw a frame of that kind that was so good.

A 1980 & 81, AutoCar wasn't into styling changes much. looked the same in the 50's. The ink is a 1955.