Drawing on his extensive personal collection as well as other sources, Ron Adams has compiled an enjoyable look at White-Freightliner trucks during the 1960s. As Adams explains in his introduction, “In 1951, Freightliner signed a 25-year sales agreement with the White Motor Co. to sell Freightliner trucks through the White dealerships,” creating White-Freightliner trucks. It was not a merger. Interestingly, a recent check reveals Freightliner’s website omits any mention of White-Freightliner models in its chronological survey of its history. Part of the Iconografix “At Work Series,” the book’s 130 black-and-white and color photographs offer a marvelous array of White-Freightliner cab-over-engine models (conventional models do not arrive until 1975) and a variety of semi-trailers, flat beds, and tankers—plus the loads being hauled. With a focus on trucks designed for the unique geography of the West Coast, the book highlights White-Freightliners with double and triple trailers, a variety of dromedary—“drom”—bodies, and those long-wheelbase set-back trailer hookups that defined western trucking. Brief, but informative, captions provide details about the trucks, as expected, as well as coverage of the trucking companies whose names usually adorn the doors and often the sides of the trailers.

Book Review by Robert Gabrick