King Soloman's Mines and Dodge trucks

[greg g]

Unrelated???? Not at all. A Short on TCM showing the making of the 1950 Stewart Granger movie on location in Africa. This documentary highlighted the 7 Dodge safari wagons. Couple busses on Power Wagon Chassis, a Pilot house 5 ton canvas toped stake rack, another Pilot house 5 ton van body with a canvas top, and a refrigerated van truck for the film and refreshments, and a 1 1/2 ton power wagon for general cargo and utility work. A scout car, an open body with 4 rows of seats and a surry style top, for scouting and hunting was built on a pre pilothouse cassis. The film noted that after slogging through silt and sand and over laval flows, through rivers, desserts and the rest of the African terrain, the total repair bill for the Dodges was 221 dollars American. One 5 tonner was a 2wd drive. Job rated Indeed!!! The refer was a 2wd COE deal that looked kinda like a Off Road Schwann's truck, making up for the lack of AWD with tall military style tires. The busses were outfitted with roof platforms for load carrying and camera platforms. The 1 1/2 tonners had a Jimmy pole and winch on the front for loading an unloading heavy crates from the beds of the others and hoisting camera up in trees or onto ledges. Neat Stuff.

Lots of slow going in granny gear with the accompaning gear noise, course the flat 6's weren't making much noise at all. Said they took the vehicles where no vehicles had gone before.

Watch for it as a filler next time the Movie King Soloman's Mines is on TCM.

[Reg Evans]

Sounds cool. Can't wait to see it !

[Bob_Koch]

Along similar lines, there's a wonderful video of a caravan of Dodge trucks travelling across Africa, titled: Wheels across Africa. A real testament to the fortitude of job-rated trucks. I think of Job-rated trucks back then were kinda like Star Trek journeys today, "Going where no man has gone before".

Here's a link:

http://www.stormpay.com/stormpay/user/user_auctions.php?l=133163438&r=P3Y9bCZjPTgyMQ

[Lee Exline]

The trucks should have been right hand drive?

They had an assembly plant in So. Africa that made trucks and cars that were shipped there in CKD (complete knock down) form from other factories. They even made Desoto trucks! Yes even Desoto Powerwagons

[greg g]

I believe they were left hand drive, hope they show it again.

[Bob_Koch]

If you're interested in "Wheels Across Africa" it's in the public domain, which means if you have a good internet connection you can download it for free. It's in 4 parts. Here's the url:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=wheels%20across%20africa%20AND%20mediatype%3Amovies%20AND%20collection%3Aprelinger

King Solomon's Mines is also in public domain. You can download here:

http://www.archive.org/details/king_solomans_mine

[greg g]

The linked version of the KING SOLOMINS MINE looks to be an even earlier version. the one on TCM is the Stewart Granger, Debora Kerr 1950 release.

I believe there was a later one with Richard Chamberlin (maybe made for TV) also. The one linked was a B&W release while the Granger Kerr release was in color.

Thanks for the links.

[Guest Kuster13]

Pilothouse spotted in the movies...

In the beginning of the movie "Gone Fishin'" with Joe Pesci and Danny Glover there's a nice 48' to 50' B-series .