Casual music and automotive fans will likely both know of the REO Speed Wagon (and/or Speedwagon if you want to be pedantic about spelling), but few will know about the existence of the REO Bottlewagon. According to the Scranton-area seller of this Bottlewagon, the Berwick Creamery commissioned three 1930 REO chassis at some point with milk-bottle-shaped fiberglass bodywork. Since fiberglass bodies weren’t really a thing until at least 1950, it’s safe to assume these were built and modified post-war. It probably looked pretty sweet when new, but after a few decades of aging on the Back 40, the Bottlewagon has a schnoz that only a mother could love.
It’s hard for someone who isn’t versed in pre-war cars (i.e. myself) to say what chassis this is based on, though I think it might be a Flying Cloud, a car name that makes me puzzle at the strange world of pre-war cars and what conventions through which companies coined the models. Anyway, the Bottlewagon, as the seller indicates, requires a complete restoration that likely includes needing running gear and at least some work on the fiberglass panels. But who wouldn’t want to put in the work of restoring an otherwise impossible-to-find pre-war car that is shaped like a 15-foot milk bottle?
Find this fine automotive prop on Scranton CraigsList here.
Milk bottle?
Turn it into a Glenlivet bottle and then have a drink of the real thing to give you inspiration as to what running gear to fit. Then finish off the whole bottle and forget what you were thinking about earlier.
Better still forget the drink and install a full on custom diesel motor from Industrial Injection and a complete independent suspension system and really nice wheels. Then have a proper drink to celebrate finishing it..
Hic!
I had a ’47 REO bus that had a White Mustang 386 cubic inch 6-cylinder flat-head motor in it. Split-manifold dual exhaust That with a big cam would wake that milk bottle up.