I just passed a 'Gimmy' and a 'white', ...(I've been passing everything in sight)

Thanks,

"Georgia Overdrive" is NEUTRAL, that's how you coast on downgrades without wearing out the throwout bearing, just kick it into neutral and hope nobody in front of you suddenly slows down! It's illegal and unsafe but it "saves fuel".

Carter

Erv, so quick to judge....I love it!!

[This message was edited by Carter York on 20 March 2003 at 10:45 PM.]

pretty funny stuff......

Carter

[This message was edited by Carter York on 20 March 2003 at 10:46 PM.]

Also the tune "Semi Truck"
'Well here I sit . . . all alone with a broken heart
I took three bennies . . . and my semi truck won't start'

------------------
Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro

When I worked a night job at the docklands doing maintenance and reflooring a massive servie area and shipping container shed, we somehow ended up with painkillers (from carrying 20 kilo buckets of resin and industrial sand/filler mix.. my hands would curl up into claws each morning), and one of the guys popped up with his wife's diet pills.
Man, they made a fella feel zesty!

Jimmy Dale...

quote:

---

Son, when you took a couple of those little white pills( white cross Bennies)and chased them down with a cup of black coffee, about 45 minutes later you were riding six inches off the seat and counting every blade of grass along the highway.

---

Speaking of bennies -- Commander Cody recorded a song that had a line in it that went, "I just took three bennies, and now my semi truck won't start." I think it was written by Bill Terchen(sp?), a guitar player in the band.

By the way, White Motor Company was one of the largest truck manufacturing conglomerates in the world shortly before they went into bankruptcy in the early 80's. They started in the early 1900's as a sewing machine manufacturer and branched out into heavy machinery. They split into two companies -- one making trucks and the other making farm tractors and the like. I believe the farm tractor manufactering branch is still in business.

White Motor Company, at one time, owned and manufactured the following brands of trucks: Autocar, Diamond T, Western Star, R.E.O. and Sterling. They also manufactured trucks under their own brand, "White." White never owned Freightliner, but they did have an exclusive marketing and distribution agreement with Freightliner - hence the White Freightliner name.

Sterling was discontinued back in the early 50's, and interestingly, the Sterling brand has been recently picked up by Freightliner and applied to Ford heavy trucks which they now own.

R.E.O. was originally started by Ransom E. Olds after he sold his car company, Oldsmobile, to General Motors. In the mid 60's Diamond T and R.E.O. were combined to form Diamond R.E.O. Western Star was started by White in the mid 60's to compete with the fancier trucks like Peterbilt and Kenworth.

After White went into bankruptcy, they were purchased by Volvo. Volvo also purchased the GMC heavy truck division and became known as Volvo-White-GMC, now simply known as Volvo Trucks.

Freightliner and White cancelled their marketing agreement sometime in the 70's and Freightliner was again known simply as "Freightliner." Freightliner was subsequently purchased by Diamler-Benz which owns it to this day (now Diamler-Chrysler).

The Autocar name was retained by Volvo and they sold trucks under that badge for a few years. Diamond R.E.O. had been sold off to an investor in the early 70's who carried on for a few years and then went belly up. Western Star was sold to a Canadian Company who made the trucks in Kelowna, B.C. until recently when Western Star was purchased by Freightliner.

(Incidentally, Mack has been owned by Renault for years, and I believe has been purchase recently by Diamler-Benz. This means that the only heavy duty truck manufacturers which are American-owned are Peterbilt/Kenworth (Owned by Pacific Car and Foundery) and Navistar. Navistar has been on financially shaky ground for years so who knows how long they'll last).

I'm not positive, but I believe the term "Georgia Overdrive" may refer to the practice of re-arranging the internal gearing components of a Fuller twin-countershaft, dual range truck transmission, wherein the top two gears were switched so as to make the top gear a "taller" ratio to give a higher top speed.

If you like truck drivin' songs, check out some early Del Reeves tunes such as "I'm lookin' at the world through a windshield" (long strips of rubber that you see, were burnt off this rig by the likes of me, and left to rot on the highways of this land) and the classic "Girl on the Billboard" (I slowed my Jimmy down to 20, that's how many wrecks I see there every day, caused by the girl wearin' nothin' but a smile, and a towel, in the picture, on the sign, on the billboard, in the field, by the big ol' highway) and,

Red Simpson's tunes such as "Nitro Express," and "Dangerous Curves."

[This message was edited by Tom Olson on 06 March 2002 at 11:27 PM.]

Yes, I think Volvo still markets some forward control-type trucks and the like under the White badge. I believe that Marmon bit the dust a few years ago -- I'm not sure exactly when, but it's been within the last 5 years, I think.

You are right -- Freightliner was started by the Consolidated Freightways company back in the 30's. They needed a truck which would maximize the amount of payload that could be carried in accordance with the laws of the western states (which were different than the laws of the eastern states at that time).

So, Consolidated Freightways started their own truck-building company "Freightliner" which initially only built trucks for use by CF. I'm pretty sure they had nothing to do with White until later.

Then, due to demand from other truckers, Freightliner decided to offer trucks for sale outside of CF. They did so for a number of years, and then decided that the marketing and sales aspect was more than they really wanted to get into, so they made an agreement with White to do the sales, marketing and distribution so they (Freightliner) could consentrate on building trucks. Freightliner was then sold off from CF to private investors.

Regarding gross weight, before standardization of gross vehicle weight laws, each state set their own maximum gross weights. The maximum was around 73,000 or so, but most states were different from each other -- some higher, some lower. Each state also reguired a carrier to register and obtain authority from it's respective Public Utilities Commission (or equivalent) as well as purchase a fuel permit sticker for fuel tax reporting purposes. Additionally, not all states honored other states vehicle registrations. Some states honored certain other states vehicle registrations while other didn't. There were various "compacts" between certain states for vehicle registration reciprocity. That's why, back in the old days, over-the-road trucks had several different license plates. In short, it was a real complicated mess.

Nowadays, trucks only need one license plate from their home state, as the result of Federal legislation, and they need only one fuel tax registration.

Federal law also mandates a at least an 80,000lb gross weight for specified vehicle combinations on what is referred to as the "Federal Highway System" which includes some interstates and US highways along with others.

No, just kidding, but who'd a thought that a misspelled word (Gimmy) and some naiveness (a White?) would lead to this much info. Thanks to all of y'all, *SO* many songs make so much more sense now, this is great!