Commer Chameleon

Why is a British tractor pulling new Ramblers?

Commer Chameleon

Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

November, 2010 - Jim Donnely

If you immediately spotted what's out of place in this photograph, you might be a very hardcore truck enthusiast. First, let's take a moment to frame what isn't. The image depicts a quintet of brand-new 1957 Ramblers, secured aboard a haulaway trailer operated by Kenosha Auto Transport, in the big American Motors shipment yard in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Everything's normal so far. And then you look at the tractor. It's a Commer cabover. A Commer. What's that? It's a once-famed nameplate of British-built truck, originally produced in Luton, beginning in 1905. To Americans, however, Commers didn't exist outside the Anglo-centric prototypes of Matchbox and Dinky miniatures. To see a real one outside a major American auto factory at the peak of the industry's might, loaded up with new cars, is inexplicable.

Dick Copello, though, was willing to give it a shot. Dick, who lives in York, Pennsylvania, followed up a 30-year career with Chrysler by getting into the auto-delivery business. He has what may be the largest private collection of auto-transport historical photos in the United States, and he even compiled them a decade ago into a book, American Car Haulers. This photo wasn't in the book. Instead, Dick got it from a former employee of Kenosha Auto Transport, which hauled AMC products for many years.

"I've been trying to explain the Commer tractor. This is definitely at the American Motors yard in Kenosha, but the tractor has no lettering on it. In the photo, the air and electrical lines to the trailer aren't even connected. And if you look under the tractor's front bumper, that's where the exhaust and muffler are located. That's something usually associated with an airfield fuel tanker. Maybe it was a yard tractor only.

"I never saw another Commer in the United States, but I know that some of those trucks were imported into Canada, and that KAT operated in the border areas of Canada in those days. Shipments inland to Canada were usually handled with KAT trailers pulled by tractors owned by Canadian companies. That may be the case here."

One of the earliest KAT photos in Dick's archive depicts a wonderful, gasoline-fueled International K tractor pulling four new 1946 Nash sedans on an "Illinois Special," the term for a low-profile, two-axle trailer pulled by hitch rather than the more typical fifth-wheel manner. Particularly under owner Nick Demos, KAT was an innovative, adaptable company, quick to react to changes in vehicle laws governing the capacity of its transports.

For example, this trailer is a "convertible" built at the KAT shops, also in Kenosha. All of the uprights and deck plates were removable and widely adjustable, so the trailer could haul cars, trucks, both--or other things entirely. For years, KAT rigs hauled Dodge and International pickups (from a KAT terminal in Springfield, Ohio) to the West Coast; there, they were partially knocked down, and returned to the Midwest loaded with either boats or new Elgin street sweepers. As Dick put it, "Nick was famous in the industry for squeezing in one more car than everybody else."

Here was another smart KAT move: The firm sold its tractors to its fleet drivers, then leased the tractors back from the drivers. That way, KAT had no working capital tied up in equipment. In the 1990s, KAT evolved into several other haulers, including Active.

But about that English tractor: Commer was brought out of receivership by Humber, which, in 1931, joined the Rootes Group. Commer built a strange two-stroke opposed diesel with three cylinders, called the "Commer knocker." The three rear cab windows of this late-1950s Commer tractor are clearly Dodge-inspired, and by this time, Chrysler was acquiring ever-larger chunks of Rootes. After Peugeot bought Chrysler Europe in 1978, some Commer trucks were badged as Renaults, before the name was dropped entirely.

There you have it. Commer, Rootes, AMC, Chrysler, Renault.


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