(By Greg Rourke) – It’s no secret we love big trucks on BangShift. It’s also no secret we’re into old wreckers, as evidenced by the world famous Brutus wrecker owned, steered and geared by our fearless leader Brian. As cool as Brutus is, every now and then we run across something that might have Brian looking at closing out a 401(k), cashing in a life insurance policy, or taking several mortgages on BangShift Eastern headquarters. This might be just such a machine.
The seller doesn’t offer much information on this sweet ride. It appears to be the RDF series of International Harvester heavy trucks, 1956 model year. They say it’s a 2500 series, but after much research ( 20 minutes of sorting through Google, including one bathroom break) we couldn’t find anything with that designation. It has a Holmes twin boom wrecker, which means two winches, and the booms can be swung individually, 90 degrees to the side. Or both pulling together for heavy loads. This was high line in the days before our current megadollar rotater wreckers. It has a Cummins diesel, the seller says 350 horsepower. We’d have to guess it’s an NT series, 855 cubic inches. These were not around in 1956, so clearly it’s an upgrade. The only thing keeping the Lohnes family from financial ruin is it has only one stick coming through the floor. Sorry Brian, only one transmission, so no two stick tomfoolery. Still, 15 forward speeds will keep you busy jammin’ gears.
Over all, it looks like a sweet old, very functional truck. The box on the roof is an air conditioner, unheard of in 1956. The headlights are not stock and appear to be Peterbilt sourced. Red shag carpet likely pirated from someone’s rumpus room circa 1973. Cheesy diamond tuft upholstery from the custom van era adorns the ceiling and back of the cab. The wrecker body is clearly more modern, ditto the tubeless aluminum wheels. If we had to guess, perhaps the old IH cab and hood is mounted on a more modern chassis.
Click here to see more of this awesome looking International wrecker
I thought brutus was gone, long live that pickupish thing he had now. In all honesty, I suspect our hard-working superhero is doing a moss-experiment on it and the Caprice.
To this example, I bet this was a show truck that lost its luster… too bad, it’s neat.
The green C50 pick up was Goliath. The white C50 wrecker is Brutus.
Yea that’s a classic old wreaker but what would you do with it? I would like to know what ever happened to that white 4 door ex cop car caprice that was supposed to be getting a new engine a couple of years ago.