I have owned some cool old trucks but I have never owned a semi-tractor and that will be a thing someday. I have been letting my mind wander a little bit like all of us have over the last few weeks and now I am obsessed with one particular truck I have found. It’s this early 1980s AM General built M-915 A1 truck and it’s awesome for all the right ways and only has one big downside.
For starters, look at the big bull-bar deal on the front end, the totally square shape of the cab, it’s equipped with a power divider to get the most bite out of the twin screw rear axles, and of course the straight pipes must sound like heaven when the 400 Cummins Big Cam engine is up on song. Downsides? Well, it has an automatic transmission. That may actually be an upside when it comes to driving the thing around but not having the ability to row the truck takes a little of the fun factor out.
Note the CCC logo on the grill. These trucks were built off of the Crane Carrier Corporation Centaur platform of trucks. Crane was in the truck building business for many years but mostly for half-cab rigs used in applications like mobile cranes, cement mixers, and other stuff. They also have a good portion of the low cab entry garbage truck industry as well. Like many of those companies the ownership of the brand has changed like 100 times.
Anyway, this truck is awesome and I want it. I’d leave the drab, the straight pipes, and hotrod the hell out of the Cummins until I grenaded the Allison. That would give the excuse to have that transmission built to survive a surgical military strike. This thing is great.
eBay: 1980s AM General built M-915 A1 is awesome and we want the straight pipes!
I was in the National Guard when these first came into the picture. I was a crawler tractor operator then, and had to transport my dozer from our summer camp back to our unit home. Our unit had just received our first new 20 Ton tractors, which is what they were called back then, but no new trailer. I was sent out to reposition my dozer with the new tractor, but with one of our older trailers. For whatever reason, halfway through the trip, the air lines would not hold, and I was hurtling down a steep grade with 27 tons of iron on a trailer with no trailer brakes!! The thing about those transmissions was, when the engine hits 2200 RPM in high gear, it shifts into neutral, and away you go!!
Luck can never last a lifetime
Luck can never last a lifetime
The secret of success is to stick to your own goals and beliefs