Early truck identification

This photo was taken in Windsor, Berkshire (England) after WWI. The family that supplied the photo has identified the man on the cab step as their great uncle, James Knight. Can anyone identify the truck?

Nice job of stacking the wood. With solid rubber tires it 'wood' have to be (-:

This is a Peerless truck.It is difficult to pinpoint the year because they didn't change much. Peerless started making trucks in 1911 through to 1919. They sold over 12,000 trucks to England in the First World War. By 1915 Peerless had over 100 different truck styles. 3-ton, 4-ton, 5-ton and 6-ton with standard or long chassis. Power-dumping trucks, stake and enclosed trucks and tractors for two wheel and four wheel trailers. The engine was a 40hp T head four cylinder and the chassis were $3,700 to $5,135.

This was the Peerless heavy duty line of trucks, they also built lighter trucks, ambulance, hearse, and patty wagons on the larger car chassis.

I have numerouse pictures of Peerless trucks and would post them if I knew how.

See this thread on adding photo.

http://forums.aaca.org/ubbthreads.php/topics/429887/How_to_attach_a_photo_to_your_#Post429887

I would love to see a picture of the enclosed truck for the 2 wheel trailer

Thank you for identifying the truck. The man at the cab step is my great uncle James Knight. The truck was bought after WW1 as army surplus along with some other trucks including Ford's. This truck was used on a daily contract to take hardwood logs from the railhead at Windsor railway station to a tile kiln in Winkfield Row near Bracknell in Berkshire. The Knight family also used the fleet of trucks to collect fresh cut carnations from the market garden in Winkfield Row, the flowers were then taken to Southampton docks for the transatlantic liners. My second cousin told me that the truck was a Pierce Arrow, but it became apparent that the truck was not one of those.

I did find some info regarding Peerless Trucks here;

http://www.peerlessmotorcar.com/index.php/the-peerless-trucks-main-menu

I think the Knight's must have bought the trucks from the Peerless Trading Co.

There is only one surviving item of the above truck, one of the carriage lamps. My cousin who was a nephew of the above James Knight told me that the truck was scrapped in the 1950's but the wooden wheels remained stored outside the garage that the trucks were maintained in. The wheels were eventually burned in the late 1960's. Only one lamp remains, though I have not seen it. My cousin died in February aged 76...... so I will not be able to find out anything more about the truck. I met my cousin for the very first time only 2 years ago. There is a huge collection of photo's of the family that go all the way back to Victorian times.

Many thanks to Paul55 for posting the subject for me. I also would love to see more pictures of Peerless trucks, so hope The Green Dragon will post his pictures here.

Thank you all.

Hi all,

No wonder I was having difficulty in matching it to a British make ! The visible registration appears to be BL 833 which would have been issued by Berkshire County Council in 1904. Obviously there must therefore be an additional figure at the end; BL833# which makes the registration issue as late spring 1921.

Must have taken hours to arrange the wood for the photo!!

Regards

Vintman (UK)

www.svvs.org

Great photo, especially of the log loading job. You'll never see that these days!!!

Here are some pictures of early Peerless Trucks. Hope this helps.

Thanks for posting the extra images GD. I spoke recently with another cousin who remembers the wagon in the original picture. The body was often removed and replaced with a furniture box. When the furniture box was not in use it was kept stored elevated above ground on railway sleepers, I expect so that they could drive out from underneath the box. Quite ingenious I think. Lovely to be able to see the chain drive more clearly too. It does not show up so well in my original picture.

Once again, thank you to you all.

Regards

Philip