Thu Jun 18, 2015 1:48 pm by WEW51L110
With no mention about roads and highway speeds, I think what you are asking will get mostly philosophical answers. Most manufacturers have as a guiding concept to build their trucks better today than they did before. That's the same mantra for any business, to do it better and provide better products than before. If pre-war trucks were so great, then why aren't they still being built? Not to say there weren't some really nice trucks built, they were just really nice for their time. I think that the trucks from the '60's are superior to the pre-war trucks for a couple of reasons. They had more capacity, and their safety systems are far better - steering, braking to cite a couple. Looking at the IHC brand alone, for example. Some of the pre-war models had some really nice appearance (C model, D model IMO) and hauled a payload consistent with their time, but the mid '50's had some nice design elements too and they would haul more payload, steer better, had better suspension, and better brakes. Yet the '60's models out-did the '50's with refined suspension, more HP, and refined braking (disc brakes).
So I think it would go without saying that while there were things to like about the pre-war models, the post war models incorporated the improvements that were developed by the war effort years. I think that to put this concept to the extreme, a pristine, wooden wheeled, high wheeler from the early '20's would have no competition from a looks point of view at a truck show, but put it to work against even a IHC from the '70's and the '70 model would out haul, out perform, out brake and essentially do everything better that the early high wheeler.
It's fun to remember the older models and is the basis of this whole forum, but the reality is, the newer the truck, the better - in general - it is.
L110 owner since 1974, finally rebuilt 2014.