Pacific Truck and Trailer 1947-1991

Story by Hank Rabe

Photo's from Bob Dingsdale and Hank Rabe

Pacific Truck and Trailer was a relatively small but always expanding West coast custom manufacturer of heavy duty on/off highway trucks and trailers. Pacific was founded in 1947 by 3 ex-Hayes employees, Claude Thick, Vic Barclay and Mac Billingsley. The first truck they sold was bought by Bowater's Pulp and Paper in Newfoundland, 3,000 miles away from the factory in Vancouver B. C.. They quickly established themselves in the B.C. market producing logging trucks and trailers for major forest companies and independent log haulers.

Pacific first built trucks on a wharf at West Coast Shipyards in the False Creek area of Vancouver. Within a year production requirements dictated a move to a larger facility on Franklin street in the East end of Vancouver. In 1948 they also built a fire truck for the Vancouver fire dept. In 1953 they expanded again to include a sheet metal department. During this time the staff expanded from 11 to 53 employees.

Pacific stayed with the first style of truck until 1955 or 1956. These trucks had a square type of fender, large single headlights which were mounted on the front bumper. They had a rounded grill in the front of radiator. In the second design the fenders were rounded and the headlights were mounted on the side of the radiator. These trucks came with a guard over the top of the lights and a grill guard or radiator guard in front of an exposed radiator with shutters. The name Pacific was painted on the hood and Pacific was cast into the upper radiator tank. On most trucks the exhaust was also moved from coming out of the hood to the rear of the cab. In 1960 they made more changes again. They now had script lettering in chrome on the hood and radiators. They also had a highway truck for logging in the interior. The fenders were still rounded but some trucks came with square fenders. In 1965 a P-9 truck was sold to Schneider Logging in Kelowna B.C. This truck had square fenders and the headlights were mounted on the front fenders. They went from large round single headlights to 2 small round lights on each side. Before this the trucks were rated by their rear end size. During this time they manufactured a cab over truck for snow plowing and sanding on the Hope-Princeton highway.A total of 4 units were Manufactured,1957,1960,1961 and 1962. These were the only cab-over trucks that Pacific built until the mid 80's when they built two concrete pumpers also a cab-overs. One was a Tandem steer, tandem drive for a concrete pump manufacture, the other one was for a customer in California this one was a tri-steer and tandem drive with a sleeper cab-over.

The first I-beam frame truck came out in 1963. This truck was sold to Matt Isherwood of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. This truck had a V8-903 Cummins, 5x4 Spicer and a B/L 8341 with 4640 wide track rears. 12ft bunks and 1200x24 tires. This truck also was equipped with two Williams exhaust brakes, Lear electric retarder on the drive shaft and a water tank for spraying water on the brakes drums to keep them cool. This was a state of the art modern and huge truck in 1963. This truck was not sold as a P-16. Sometime between 1963 and 1965 the model P-16 was named. Pacific Truck and Trailer now had model # of P-9, P-10 and P-16. On the P-9 the frame was a 9 inch, on the P-10 the frame was 10 inches. The P-16 was a real heavy-duty truck with a rigid frame of a 16 inch I-beam.

In 1967 Pacific Truck and Trailer moved again this time to North Vancouver. The company purchased 4.2 acres with options on the adjoining property. The manufacturing facility comprised of a 46,000 sq ft building. Which included a manufacturing shop, general office, service parts, service repair and OEM parts storage. 8 years later the existing facilities were inadequate and they expanded again.

In August 1970 International Harvester company acquired 100% of Pacific Truck and Trailer. Pacific was a highly successful operation prior to acquisition. As a Heavy-Duty truck manufacturer Pacific was in a unique situation Pacific was a small company which allowed it to adjust its product to comply with specific job requirements. In August 1971 Pacific received an invitation to tender four trucks from IH of South Africa. The South African Railway was to be the end use of these trucks. And were to be used in hauling 150 ton to 370 ton loads. Most of the loads were for Thermal Power Plants, although they could be used to haul any heavy loads. I believe these trucks were about 635 hp each. Pacific received the tender and advised International that it would not submit a quotation until Pacific's manager of sales engineering and product development Mr, Gwynn Jenkins had consulted with the final user. Mr. Jenkins went to South Africa September 1971. In the first week of October Pacific submitted a bid for a Model P-12 a truck which had never been built. May 1972 Pacific was informed that it was the successful bidder. August 1, 1972 final layout and shop drawings were completed. November 22, 1972 all four units were shipped by ship to Johannesburg South Africa. Amazingly this full sequence of events from receipt of order to full service had taken only 12 months.These trucks were called Ultra and a total of 23 were built 5 with 800 horse power. Shortly after the P-12 became a regular production truck in 1973. By 1975 Pacific was building four models of trucks, three of which were strictly off highway. The remaining unit the P-510 series with a standard GVW of 56,000 lbs is manufactured for both on and off road. By this time the P-510's were produced more than the other models. P-510 frame 10"x 3 1/4" x 3/8" P-512 frame 12" x 4" x 3/8 Of the off-highway models the P-10 has a rated GVW of 81,000 lbs. The P-12 and the P-16 have identical ratings of 128,000 lbs. The P-12 has a 12" x 4" 3/8" 40" wide frame. All models except the P-16 are based on a flexible channel bolted frame rail construction. The P-16 frame is a rigid welded built around a pair of 16" I-beam rails 1/2" x 6' The trailers manufactured by Pacific the majority were for logging applications ranging from 30 to 60 tons. Pacific also built low beds of 75, 90, and 200 ton capacity. The P-510 trucks came with steel hoods and fenders, P-510-S had steel fenders and hoods, P-510-F. had fiberglass fenders and hoods. Pacific trucks are used in oilfield work in North America. They built trucks for the oilfields overseas, these were known as Roughnecks for desert work, They had oversized tires for desert sand conditions. The P-510-S and P-510-F used Internationals Paystar cabs. Pacific steel cab was available as an option. I remember in 1976 or 1977 driving for Roy Harker trucking a P-10, and a trucker from Texas came to the mine at Elkford B.C. and looked lost. I pulled up to his cabover K.W. and we looked straight across at one another and he asked what kind of a conventional truck I was driving. I replied it was a real truck made in Canada. It was a 1974 P-10 with a 35 yard coal box. The truck had a tare weight of 36,000 lbs and usually had 60,000 to 65,000 lbs payload on 3 axles. Fred Sowchuck trucking Sparwood B. C. bought his first Pacific P-9 in 1964, in the 1970's had one of the largest fleets of Pacific trucks, these were all coal haulers P-10's In 1975 he bought his first P-12-W3 dump truck. These trucks had 50 to 55 yard boxes and 40 ton coal capacity. Fred had 40 Pacific's by the end of 1982,of which 9 were P-12-W3's The 1970's were good years for Pacific Truck and Trailer. Pacific trucks are found in places as Swaziland, Tasmania, New Zealand, North Borneo, Philippines. Pacific trucks are hauling sugar cane in Hawaii, Hydro-electric generating equipment in India and Africa and logs and coal in Western Canada. There was a fleet of P-12-W3 sold to a mine in Wyoming. As well as twin-steer cement and oilfield trucks. Fire trucks chassis in the mid to late 80's were sold to many cities across Canada. In 1980 a friend Bill Pierce from Merritt ordered a new P-510-S with a 8V92 435hp 15 speed. He took delivery of this truck on March 3, 1980 since the logging here was shut down for spring break-up. He thought he would head north to Prince George B.C. and work the truck for 3 or 4 weeks. Usually when you buy a new truck there are a few glitches and they could be fixed before Mid May the start up of our logging season. However there were no problems. The local truckers up north kept calling his truck 2 story conventional since Pacific sat high. In 1984 Pacific made a sales promotional video featuring their trucks, off-highway loggers, P-510 trucks and oilfield trucks working. This video was called "Pacific Built Like No Other Truck". Bill's truck was featured in this video a shining jet black P-510-S with chrome grill guard, and nice blue pin strips. Having just watched this video Oct 2005 it was interesting to see Bill driving with all his hair and front teeth. In September 1981 International sold Pacific Truck and Trailer to Inchcape Berhad from Singapore. Pacific had became a casualty of both the Canadian recession and the financial woes of International Harvester. This was a very large company in the parts business. The largest Pacific truck dealer anywhere was Burk's Intertruck in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Some years he would sell 30 off-highway trucks. A P-16 with Clark BD 91,000 rears with 106 inch track is 11ft 6"wide with 1400 tires and slightly wider with 1600 tires. Most P-16's had 15 ft wide bunks and hauled 90 to 150 tons of wood. The trucks that were sold to Asia to haul Hardwoods only had 14 ft bunks with short stakes since that wood was too heavy for the bigger bunks and high stakes. The big factor in the weight was the type of wood. Cedar, fir, hemlock . You could really get a huge jag of Cedar on but if you were overloaded with a load of hemlock you were in for tire-troubles, brakes overheating, slow pulling. A friend Bob Dingsdale had a load of Hemlock on one time that weighed 157 tons and he got raked over the coals for it. It was not that big of a load just very heavy. He did not find out how heavy until he dumped it. The dump had scales on the unloading lines. By 1986 the market for a Premium truck on the highway was shrinking fast. Tare weights were becoming a huge issue. Most P-510's at this time were 3,000 lbs heavier than other trucks. This was due to being over built. Steel cabs extra strong fuel tank straps and brackets, this all added up to being a extremely strong tough well built truck. The interior Pacific truck dealers did not sell any P-510 trucks after 1987. Nor-Mar truck in Penticton sold 13 trucks in the last year. The down turn in the economy in the mid 80's also meant there was no market for off highway trucks. When dealers go from 30 trucks, and a couple years later 2 it is not a good thing for a truck manufacture. The last new P-16 was sold, went to Vancouver Island in 1989. The last 3 trucks were built in 1991 the Pacific Truck and Trailer property was sold and the building torn down in October 1991 However in 1995 a customer from a mining company in Soda Springs, Idaho, USA wished to place an order for a P-12-W3, to pull triple belly dump trailers with a total capacity of 250 tons. In order for the truck to be built this customer was required to pay in advance the full cost of production. This truck was built in the Parts Warehouse.

In 2002 Coast Power Train New Westminster B.C. purchased all the rights, blueprints Jigs and Templates for Pacific trucks. They are currently rebuilding Pacific trucks and are now manufacturing O.E.M. equipment for all Pacific trucks, and are also in the process of getting all the legal paper work in place so they can start to build new trucks, if orders come in. They will be know as Pacific Truck Manufacturing Inc. During the time that Pacific Truck & Trailer was in business, there were a total of 2,308 Pacific trucks built; 23 went to South Africa, and just over 90 went to New Zealand. I would like to say thank-you to Bob Dingsdale and Larry McNutt for all their help with this story.
More Pacific Truck Pictures
P-510F, 8V92, 15 speed, with a rock box		P-16 mid 70's Mike Easton trucking, driver Dave Huston, 14 ft bunks, 140 ton of ceder, upper Pitt Lake B.C.
P-510S, 8V92, 15 speed, Knight Heavy Haul & Low bed, Osoyoos B.C. Still used in 2008.	P-510S, 8V92, Allison Auto