Using 121 black-and-white photos from the Detroit Public Library’s National Automotive History Collection, Editor Don Bunn provides readers with an overview of trucks made by White from the first steam-powered truck in 1900 to the streamlined models offered in the 1930s. For those familiar with the more recent story of the White Motor Corp.’s acquisitions of numerous independent companies and their subsequent demise, as well as White’s ultimate bankruptcy, the book offers a view of the company’s earlier trucks. While Bunn provides captions that offer more than earlier Photo Archive titles, they still provide limited information. For example, one of the photographs features a 1937 Model 700 and its Greyhound Lines “trailer-bus” with “Great Lakes Exposition” on the side of the trailer. Additional research would indicate the 1936–37 Exposition was held in Cleveland, Ohio—White’s home. Lacking a more complete look at historical context, the three-page introduction devotes less than a half page to events after 1920, while some two-thirds of the photographs cover the time period after 1920. Overall, the photographs offer a nice overview that includes early light- and heavy-duty models and the famous Labatt’s streamlined delivery trucks and renderings by noted stylist Alexis de Sakhnoffsky.

Book Review by Robert Gabrick