Harry Smeltzer and Harry Apple, the pioneers of interstate trucking, and their rig? A 5 ton Packard. It was April 1917 and Goodyear set out to create trucking as we know it. From coast to coast on pnuematic tires, in days not weeks

image from http://www.lincoln-highway-museum.org/NPS/03-NPS-Index.html

Image courtesy of David Greenlees and The Old Motor http://theoldmotor.com/?p=56024 which is most likely one of the two escort vehicles, which carried supplies. This photo didn’t come with info… so it’s anyone’s guess

above two images from http://www.camionactualidad.es/noticias-marcas-fabricantes-camiones/vehiculos-historicos-y-clasicos/item/912-goodyear-wingfoot-express.html

The truck made the 740-mile trip from Akron to New England in 28 days, 21 days late and having went through 28 tires. The two-man team and their film crew made it to Goodyear’s fabric mill in Killingly, CT, where much to their surprise they were greeted by Mission of Burma a brass band and hundreds of cheerful mill workers.

It’s not a reflection on tire quality to mention how many went flat, you have to keep in mind that the amount of horses who’d lost horseshoe nails for the previous hundred years and the terrible conditions of 700 miles of unpaved, non improved roads.

The truck was a five-ton Packard, but the 10-foot-high, specially built body had been designed by Goodyear. Behind the novel traveling bunk, the cargo bed was loaded with a dozen spare tires, a compressor to inflate them, 500 feet of manila line, shovels and a heavy block and tackle.

What was most novel about Goodyear’s truck, named the Wingfoot Express, was the big pneumatic tires it rolled on. Hard, solid rubber tires were standard equipment for short hauls in those days.

two escort vehicles were along, sent for safety’s sake, carrying in addition to the usual tools…  60 liters of oil, 40 liters of petrol and 60 liters of water. Also, carrying what the convoy needed most, an air compressor to pump up all the replacement tires.

The three-vehicle caravan that set out to do just that was barely to the Akron outskirts when it became mired in the mud. So began an agonizing odyssey of muddy ditches, broken bridges, blown out tires and engine failures.

It came as no surprise that a heavy truck would have much more difficulty on the poorly graded dirt roads than the farmers’ lightweight buggy. Bridges that safely carried farm wagons collapsed under the Packard truck. Twice the engine failed and had to be rebuilt.

The support cars were worn out by the time the caravan reached Pittsburgh and were traded for new ones. Blowouts occurred about every 75 miles as the truck plodded ahead at 15 mph.

As Smeltzer described the trip, “It took 28 days and 28 tires.” The trip back with fabric from the mill was less eventful and took just five days.

 Walter Shively, the tire engineer, promptly applied the lessons learned in the grueling truck tire test and improved tires were almost immediately available. A stronger bead and heavier sidewalls produced a tire more resistant to blowout.

Future trips employed seven Wingfoot Express trucks, ranging from three- to five-ton models of White, Mack and Packard. The 740-mile run one way was pared down to 80 hours running time within a year.

They carried tires to Goodyear dealers in the Boston area, or shoe soles for New England footwear makers, bringing back tire fabrics from the Connecticut mill.

The success of the Wingfoot Express was reflected by a spurt in highway construction, as state governments strived to improve roads within their jurisdiction. The Lincoln Highway movement, conceived in 1913 to create a modern coast-to-coast highway, was strongly supported by Goodyear’s President Frank Seiberling.

by 1919 they were coast to coast

In 1918, the same trucks that had conquered the ten-foot snow drifts of Pennsylvania’s worst winter in decades, left Boston for San Francisco. This time, the caravan faced a round trip of 7,763 miles, some of it across trackless desert. In Wyoming alone, 36 of 56 wooden bridges gave way beneath the highway giants.

This time the commercial cargo was aviation tires needed by the Army on the West Coast. Again, the persistent Goodyear teams overcame all obstacles of road conditions and weather. After completing four round trips totaling 30,000 miles, the Express trucks had established a new world transcontinental record, coast-to-coast in just 14 days.

Found on http://forums.justoldtrucks.com/25451/cooperation-sleeper-cab?PageIndex=16  and http://www.goodyear.com/corporate/history/history_wingfootexpress.html

image from http://www.cheersandgears.com/topic/78687-gmc-art/

By the 1920′s it was decided that another pair of tires would be an engineering necessity to lessen the load and increase the life expectancy of any tire, through the lower load on each, and they added a 2nd axle in the rear

Photo from http://www.camionactualidad.es/noticias-marcas-fabricantes-camiones/vehiculos-historicos-y-clasicos/item/912-goodyear-wingfoot-express.html

photo from http://www.cheersandgears.com/topic/78687-gmc-art/

Not until 1926 was the production of pneumatic tires higher than that of solid tires; four years later the ratio was 10-1 and ten years later by 10,000 to one.

some info from http://www.urlaubsspass.de/auto/160507-wingfoot/160507-wingfoot.htm

the above 8 wheel bus was used to pick up and return Goodyear employees from the company housing development in Goodyear Hights to the Akron tire factories. Firestone did the same thing.

above 3 images from http://www.cheersandgears.com/topic/78687-gmc-art/ and are 1921

So these ads seem to indicate that Goodyear was selling prefab homes in the 40′s during WW2 (notice the “Buy War Bonds”) , and using the name Wingfoot Homes and the material that insulaed the homes was the “Pliofoam” used to seal war aircraft gas tanks from bullet holes.

and in the 1980s they did an homage to the 1917 Ohio to Connecticut run on the sides of their trucking trailers.

Images from Ebay listings

found on http://www.oldcaradvertising.com/Packard%20Ads/1922/1922%20Packard%20Truck%20Ad-01.html