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Eckland were builders of truck and bus bodies whose work was seen on a
number of locally-built chassis including Twin City and Will. When the
Greyhound company who owned Will sold the firm to Yellow Coach and turned to
buying Yellows, Eckland were short of work, so they tried their hand at bus
chassis construction. Their only product was an unusual vehicle, patterned
on the Twin Coach but employing four wheel drive. The two 6-cylinder
Waukesha engines were located half way down the chassis, one on each side of
the frame, each with its own 3speed gearbox and propeller shaft. The
nearside engine drove forward to the front axle, the offside to the rear.
There were two separate radiators at the front of the bus, one for each
engine. It is thought that only one prototype was made, although Eckland
remained in business as body-builders until 1935.
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The Minnesota Roots of the Greyhound Bus Corporation - Minnesota History
- Winter 1985 (vol49 #8)pp310-321
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WILCOX (US) 1910-1927
(1) H.E. Wilcox Motor Truck Co., Minneapolis, Minn.
(2) H.E. Wilcox Motor Co., Minneapolis, Minn.
(3) Wilcox Trux Inc., Minneapolis, Minn., 1921-1927
This company began its career in vehicle construction with the Wolfe
passenger car of 1907. Some car-based delivery trucks were also called
Wolfe, but the name of all products was changed to Wilcox in 1910 when two
trucks were listed, a 1-tonner with driver either behind engine or over it,
and a 3-tonner. Also that year Wilcox shipped a bus to South Dakota,
described as a combination mail wagon and stagecoach. Truck production grew
over the next few years so that Wilcox became the most important vehicle
maker in Minneapolis. By 1918 the range consisted of six models, from
3/4-ton to 5-tons, the larger being cab-over-engine models which Wilcox was
particularly noted for. Buda or Continental engines were used, although
Wilcox also made some of their own engines, and were something more than
mere assemblers of trucks. A number of Wilcoxes carried bus bodies, used to
transport iron and copper miners in areas where there were no railroads, and
in 1922 Wilcox made their first purpose-built bus chassis. This was a
sophisticated low-loading vehicle with drop frame (with fabricated arches
rather than one-piece side rails), a cast-aluminum radiator and Huck-type
live axle with differential-mounted planetary gear train for final
reduction. Bodies were mainly by Eckland, a Minneapolis firm who were to be
associated with Wilcox and subsequently Will until the end of their history.
Wilcox buses used either Continental or Waukesha 6-cylinder engines, and
later models had a top speed of 62 mph with 29-passenger bodies. In 1925/26
the Northland Transportation Company ordered 39 of these buses for which the
trade name of Northland was used, possibly to distinguish them from the
Wilcox truck. The latter were now made in 1- to 5-ton models, with Buda or
their own make of engine. However buses came to dominate the company's
output, and in March 1927 H.E. Wilcox sold the enterprise to principals of
the Motor Transit Corp., formed in 1926 as a holding company for bus lines
operated under the Greyhound name. (see WILL).
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