Why your next SUV should be a 1920's Dodge

[Talbot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq2jY1trxqg

Roll up windows are a nice touch.

Can anyone here pick the year?

 

[Stanley Doble]

Looks older than 1920. Possibly 1916 Texas or Oklahoma.

In 1916 Black Jack Pershing became the first US military commander to use cars and trucks extensively. This was in his campaign against Pancho Villa in the Southwest. He used Dodge cars extensively and they proved to be very useful, reliable, faster than horses and able to carry heavy loads off road and in bad conditions without breaking down.

The Dodge Brothers only started making cars in 1914 (before that they made engines, transmissions and parts for Henry Ford).

Their cars soon gained a reputation for being tough, reliable, and able to go anywhere.

Incidentally roads like that were common everywhere in America outside of major cities especially in the spring or after a spell of rain. Cars had to be built to cope with such conditions. This explains some of the design features of teens and twenties cars, and why it is hard to find examples that were never beaten to death.

If I had to guess I would say this was a publicity film made by Dodge not long after they started making cars. I don't know where it came from and I wonder if there were any opening and closing credits that were left out on Youtube.

In those days Dodge was sometimes called "the farmer's Cadillac" because they were a cut above the common Fords and Chevs and very popular in rural areas.

 

[Stearmen]

Patton used a Dodge in his famous shoot out with some of Pancho Villa’s men! http://www.uaw-chrysler.com/images/news/villa.htm

 

[1mach1]

Honestly, with some modern day safety and a newer drive train, this would be THE truck to have as a daily driver. When you show up in this thing, you have arrived!

 

[vitanola]

Notice that they overturn the car and then set back its wheels, and neither does the top collapse nor do any of the windows break!. This was a really big deal in the early 1920's, when almost every other car had a composite body, with fragile wood body framing. The Dodge Brothers were pioneers in the use of Budd all steel bodies, which were sturdymand suffered neither from the squeaks, creaks, and groans which composite bodies developed after long use, nor the rotten door posts which allowed the doors to sag until they would not close.

That four cylinder Dodge Brothers chassis was not the fastest thing on the road, but was legendarily durable from its tough and dauntless engine to its sturdy drive train. If only it didn't have that crazy, mixed-up gearshift pattern!