One day a guy came in with some old sales material from Ernest Holmes. They were the leading manufacturer of wreckers until the 90's. Gramps would drive down to Chatanooga, Tennessee and pick up a new truck every now and then, then transfer the wrecker body to a sucession of cab & chassis. Here are some of the cooler pics.
This is a 65ish Ford F350 with a Holmes 500 boom. The 500 boom was very versatile, the boom aarms could be spread apart and there were two seperate winches for recovery work. We had a 500 on a 67 Chev C50 medium sized truck and a smaller 480 on a few Chevy C30s.
An International with a lame single line wrecker on it. Not many places ran Internationals, mostly International dealers and cheap ass Yankees.
Silver Lane Shell had one, it is in a field by the Hebron Fairgrounds on Route 94/85.
The strange part was Silver Lane Shell was actually on Spencer Street.
The B Model Mack was one of, if not the best, looking trucks. This probably has the Holmes 750 mounted on it. Pops had a short wheelbase B model with a Holmes on it. That is when mem were men. I can still smell the starting fluid and Thermodyne smoke.
A rare GMC 4 wheel drive
This must have been for demonstration, nobody with a brain would use a half ton truck for work. Some guys ran single wheel 3/4 and 1 ton pickups. The smart guys would cut the ends of the bed at an angle so the towed cars didn't make contact.
Handsome line up. The lights used to be red instead of amber.
Here are some color post cards.
Ford Cabover. RT Coachworks had one of these. Shitbox.
Beefy Power Wagon
Good looking Ford
Seeing these reminds me of a simpler, slower time.
TOUGH
and even our State Gestapo had their own hooker.
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