1937 REO

Canadian Automotive Museum Audio Content

Our bilingual audio tour explores less well-known stories from the collection, in the voices of the Museum’s volunteers, historians, vehicle experts and more.
Transcript:

I'm Jil McIntosh, an auto writer and antique car owner. If you could name something famous after yourself, would you? What about a car company? What about two car companies? That’s just what Ransom E. Olds did. He was the founder of the very successful Oldsmobile car brand, and followed up by using his initials in the name of his second business, the REO Motor Car Company, or Reo. The company made a few lines of successful cars in the early 1900s, but it struck paydirt, and musical immortality, with a line of trucks it dubbed the Speedwagon.

In the early days of driving, trucks were usually custom built. Buyers would purchase a chassis and cab from the manufacturer, then add on whatever rear bed, storage compartment or body their work demanded. The Speedwagon was designed as a chassis first, but the name wasn’t just for show. Olds wanted his trucks engineered from the ground up to break speed limits, and their huge V8 engines, streamlining and pneumatic tires let them do just that. By the 1920s there were more than 125,000 Speedwagons in use across Canada and the United States.

But how did the truck become the pickup? The combination of open back and closed cabin was a popular choice with truck owners. In 1925 Ford released the “Model T Runabout With Pickup Body”, making the style official, and the modern pickup was born. Within a few years REO was producing official pickups of its own. The REO name stuck around until 1967, and after a series of mergers with other firms is now owned by Swedish manufacturer Volvo.

You may have heard the name REO Speedwagon before- it’s the American rock band responsible for hits like “Can’t Fight This Feeling” and “Keep On Loving You”. Band founder Neal Doughty noticed the original truck’s name on the blackboard in a university class, and the rest is rock-and-roll history.