Veteran Vehicle: The Liberty Truck Motorized The U.S. Military
The World War II “Jeep” may be the vehicle most often identified with the U.S. military, but it owes its existence to a truck with a closer connection to Veterans Day.
World War I took place at a crossroads in transportation technology. Soldiers on horseback fighting side-by-side with tanks and trucks at the dawn of the automobile era.
According to the National Museum of the United States Army, the Army was using 294 different types of trucks from various manufacturers in 1918, basically anything it could get its hands on, which made the supply chain to support their production and maintenance a nightmare of inefficiency.
To address the issue, the Army’s Quartermaster Corps worked with the Society of Automotive Engineers to organize a group of more than 50 engineers in 1917 to design a standardized vehicle that could be built in large numbers with interchangeable parts.
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The Standard B that the project came up with in just a couple of weeks became known as the “Liberty Truck” and mass production began in 1918. The basic vehicle was an open cab flatbed design that could accommodate a variety of bodies to carry troops, supplies and armaments.
The 22-foot body-on-frame vehicle was powered by a 52 hp 425-cubic-inch L-head four-cylinder and only built with rear-wheel-drive, but could carry three to five tons of cargo.
The Army sent the blueprints to 15 automakers, including Packard and Pierce-Arrow, to manufacture the trucks and 9,364 of them were finished before Armistice Day on in 1918 on Nov. 11, date that would become Veterans Day in 1954. More than 7,600 were shipped to Europe, according to the U.S. Army Transportation Museum. But with the end of the war came the end of production, as an original plan to order 43,000 trucks was deemed no longer necessary.
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The Liberty Trucks were used by the Army for many years to come, however, and were part of the Transcontinental Motor Convoy across the U.S. that future general and U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower took part in during 1919.
“Dirt roads made the driving difficult, and bridges couldn’t hold heavy Army trucks,” the National Museum of the United States Army wrote, adding that the 3,251-mile drive from Washington to San Francisco was completed at an average speed of six miles per hour. The 62-day trip would stick with Eisenhower and was part of the inspiration for the establishment of an interstate highway system that took place during his presidency.
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Before then, he’d spend plenty of time in the Liberty Truck’s most famous successor, the Willys MB, which was developed through a similar effort to create a simple, standardized vehicle that could be built quickly in large numbers as the U.S. ramped up its forces for World War II.
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Automakers were invited to submit proposals and the final design combined elements suggested by American Bantam, Willys-Overland and Ford, with the latter two ultimately handling the bulk of its production during the war years, which saw nearly 650,000 built before Germany and Japan surrendered.
It’s not known exactly how many Liberty Trucks survive today, but they can be found in museums across the country and occasionally show up at auctions. One immaculately restored example was sold at a Mecum Auctions event in 2022 for $71,500.
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