Working Classic of the Week

Prominent local heavy haulage contractor Paul Harrison Transport still regulary uses these classics photographed at the 2nd Hunter Valley Vintage Truck Muster:

Gents, we have an old Osh Kosh floating around the Perth Hills, I have not had a camera when ever I have seen it, has a tip body on it. An old bloke seems to be the owner driver, she is in pretty good unrestored nick.

Cheers
I bet onetrack knows the truck !!

There is also an Oshkosh on fleabay for sale, sorry, I'm not sure how to put the link in. They would be an awesome restorer...

Here's the eBay one .. it looks like it's been doing logging or off-road work, judging by the military NATO tyres that are fitted all-round. It must be an early model truck, it has the 1673 engine. It looks like it's quite a reasonable condition truck. Those cabs are mongrels of things for lack of room, though. If you think a B-model Mack is cramped, try one of those Oshkosh's for size. There's about enough room for yourself and a crib box, and that's all! ..

cgi.ebay.com.au/PRIME-MOVER-Osh-Kosh-/270588820113

Gordon - I haven't seen that one in the Hills. There have been a couple of Oshkosh's around Perth in the last 10-15 years .. one I recall was a rebuilt black one, that a bloke was doing East-West hauling with, quite a number of years ago. He was only pulling a single trailer, so I guess his chances of making any money were pretty limited. I don't think any Aussie Oshkosh's could be uprated to road train GCM.

Does anyone in Perth remember the bloke with the Oshkosh that ploughed into the Bayswater subway rail bridge with a huge, new, $250,000 drilling rig, on his trailer, about the mid-1970's?
He ripped the drill rig right off the trailer, and it splattered into a dozen pieces on the road .. and the Oshkosh got jerked back and up when he hit, and the roof of the truck slammed into the underside of the rail bridge (the subway is only about 13').
I remember a contractor mate telling me how he thought it must have really been a brain-rattling experience, to have your cab slammed into the underside of the bridge .. and I retorted how the driver probably wouldn't have had a brain to rattle!! ..

Ron,
I reckon this is a yellow one, and have seen it over toward Wanneroo, but not unusually on the Toodyay rd, around Gidgegannup. Reckon they look a real interesting old rig, used originally as tank transport ?

cheers.

Gordon - The U.S. Army had a heap of Oshkosh's for tank carrier prime movers, but they were fitted with 8V-71 GM's and Allison autos and had a dodgy-looking, single wheel, lazy axle, fitted in front of the bogie.
I remember seeing a heap of those go up for tender on the old DRMO site (now Govt Liquidations, since DRMO was privatised), about 1999.
Most of these U.S. Military Oshkosh's had done less than 20,000 miles, some only had 5000 miles on the clock. They went for around US$10,000 each.

I'm not sure that these style of Oshkosh's were built purely, or initially, for the Military. There were a lot of Oshkosh sales (of this cab style) into the logging and oil industries in the U.S. .. but they obviously also sold quite a number to the Military.

It appears that Oshkosh built their truck business on a wide range of applications, with snow plows being a big seller in the early days, and 4WD being their mainstay. WW2 saw the U.S. military purchase a large number of Oshkosh wreckers, and after WW2, they produced their first heavy duty 6x6 which was a hit with miners for ore haulage, and sugar processors for cane haulage. Oilfield truck sales boomed for them, as well concrete agitator sales.

In the late 1950's the U.S. military bought 1000 Oshkosh snow plows for clearing snow from Northern air bases at the height of the Cold War. From there, military sales boomed for them. The whole history of Oskosh is on this following webpage, just scroll down, to get the entire story ..

www.answers.com/topic/oshkosh-truck-corporation

Cheers - Ron.

This nice old 2670 lives a couple of blocks down the street from me and works every day.
Basil

Great Photo Basil, now I saw an LAD cab tipper this week, yellow and green all painted up towing a backhoe on a tag along float. Sorry but didn't :-[ :-[ have the camera with me. :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[

G'day all

I apologise for dragging this thread off course but there has been several mentions of Oshkosh ?

Just 2k up the road from me is an Army base where many of the British Army vehicles operate from.
Driver training, Vehicle evaluation etc.
Apart from the 4000 plus MAN HX/SX vehicles which are being introduced, I have noticed recently a few New Oshkosh 1070F 8x8 prime movers running as tank transporters with CAT C-18 700hp.
I saw a convoy of 6 coming towards me recently.
There are also smaller 3 axle models with CAT C-12 445 hp, running as fuel and water tankers.
I have tried on several occasions to get a photo of both of these new models, but to be honest I dont fancy getting arrested for spying
The place is understandably security conscious.

So the British Army is now running German and US metal.
Click [url=http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/285986_ARMY_VEHICLESEQUIPMENT_V12.PDF_web.pdf
]Here[/url] for more info.

That is some turnround from twenty years ago

Cheers
RS

Hi Roland, you mean to say that at last, the powers to be over there, have decided that they can only do "so much" with a lousy Bedford. [smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

I apologise too, for mentioning the word - ( bedford ) -

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]