Road Commander Build Dates

Hi All, Peter from Townsville has asked me about Road Commander and 7000 Build Dates. I thought the 7000 went from about 1968 to 1973, to be replaced by the Road Commander. Antway, I'm sure Ray will know, and he did send me a couple of pics.
The first one is a 7000.

And then a Road Commander

Ray have you gone to sleep? do you have an answer? Prawn on Tongue.

Cam, I'm working on it.
Ray

bit of info I've pirated off Hanks from W.Lineman. Bill

'It was Bunkie Knudsen who came up with the split grille.
His dad, I believe it was William Knudsen, was president of General motors at one time.
Bunkie the son was brought up through the ranks in GM and got to head the Pontiac Division.
He was the one who came up with the split grille on the '59 Pontiac. You can Google Image that one.

But Bunkie was not liked enough to be president of GM like his dad. When he got that figured out he defected to Ford as president there in 1968. Right away he went for a split grille and the best he could get was the beak on the 1970 Thunderbird.

But in late 1969 already he had run-ins with Lee Iacocca and got the axe. So he wound up as President at White Motor in 1971. Right away like a stray dog he had to make his mark. So he got the White 7000 renamed as the Road Commander and put his split grille on it. The conventional became the Road Boss. He also made the W-H-I-T-E letters a lot bigger.

Then in 1975 they introduced a new factory in southern Virginia and the new Road Commander II, Road Boss II and Xpeditor all at once. That's a lot of money to go into debt with at once and that's how Bunkie Knudsen took White Motor Corporation, in 1970 the nation's largest truckbuilder, into bankruptcy.

In 1981 Volvo bought the factories and the products and called it Volvo White. They re-named the products the White High Cabover (WHL64T) and White Conventional (WCL64T), very original. And took Bunkie's split grilles off.

-Bill'

Cya

[ch9787]

Well that clears up a couple of pionts, thanks Swishy.

that 7000 has the Aussie version cab too not the more typical yank version.

Hi guys, I'm no expert on the 7000 series subject. The 7500 series was introduced here in Australia in about 1968 -69 and in the USA even earlier. The First pic that Big Cam has posted is actually a Diamond Reo CO78,

but White called it the 7500 series.





Here is maybe a one off prototype 7400 or 7500

7400 series White.





The 7400 was the predecessor of Road Commander.

Cheers Ray

JakeBrake
GuddayM8

Gr8 info
Keep m cummin

Spose u got this one












n Yes the mice did like the White
but probly not there color

LOL

Cya

[ch9787]

Hi Teddy, I've got that brochure but only in B&W photo copy.
I think you should send your colored brochure up to me so I can save it from those rats - mice.
Cheers Ray

Guys

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply to this topic. It was posted on my behalf by Big Cam - in response to a question I posed to him regarding White Models.

So - thanks to everyone who replied - providing such detalied info on the topic.

I'm now much better informed as a result.

Oldfulla