For Pete's Sake

The history of Peterbilt, one of the world’s iconic truck marques, goes back more than 100 years, but the company twice came close to disappearing altogether

America’s Great Depression, lasting from 1929 to 1941, claimed thousands of businesses in the country as the economy suffered two major recessions within a few years, leading to high unemployment, low profits, poverty, deflation and plunging incomes. But some successful businesses did rise out of the ashes of the Depression, and one would become one of the most famous truck marques in the world – Peterbilt.

In 1938, Fageol Trucks and Safety Coaches, which had been struggling financially for some years, had called in the receivers to find a buyer for the business. Enter Theodore Alfred Peterman from Tacoma, Washington State, who was big in the logging industry and manufactured plywood. He bought Fageol for about $200,000. The attraction of Fageol to Peterman was that the trucks could be adapted to suit his company’s needs. Peterman was no stranger to modification as he had previously bespoked some ex-army surplus trucks to be used in his logging business, and had also designed and built trailers with ‘knee action’-suspension rear bogies for all-terrain use.

Peterbilt’s first models – the 260 and 334 – were produced soon after in small numbers, with the emphasis on quality rather than quantity.

Fageol finale

The emphasis on quality was something that had been integral to Fageol too, the firm originally having been formed as the Fageol Motors Company of Oakland, California in 1916 by four brothers, Rollie, William, Frank and Claude Fageol, along with an associate, L H Bill.

Fageol produced passenger cars, tractors and lightweight trucks up to five tons capacity, powered by Waukesha petrol engines.