Re: 1946 Diamond T

[Howard R Pletcher <n9ads@xxxxxxxx>]

There was never any corporate connection between IH and Diamond T.  I
guess the answer is in the old saying to believe none of what you hear
and half of what you read, particularly when generated by an used-car
selling auctioneer.

Diamond T began in 1905 when C.A. Tilt began building cars in Chicago. 
The Diamond T was a logo used by his father in a shoe-making business and
Charles adopted this for his cars and trucks.  During the 1950's, IH and
Diamond T did work closely in some areas.  The so-called R-Line cab was
originally a Diamond T design that IH began building.  The CO-190 cab
over models were also a Diamond T design also adopted by IH.  In the
mid-1950's, IH built this model for Diamond T in Fort Wayne and for a
time, Diamond T build the heaviest of the R-lines, the models that
evolved into the M-series Mixers, in Chicago for IH because of plant
capacity constraints in Fort Wayne.  But this is as close as the two
companies got.

In 1958, White Motor Co. bought Diamond T and moved production to the REO
plant in Lansing, MI.  The two lines were merged into Diamond Reo in
1967.  Diamond Reo filed for bankruptcy in 1975, two years later the
company was bought by Osterlund Inc. of Harrisburg, PA and production
moved there, lasting into the 1980's.  In 1993, the company was sold to
the New Diamond T Co. and they still build trucks for the export market.

Howard

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003 14:51:42 -0500 "Thomas R. Elliott Jr."
<T_R_E_Jr@domain.elided> writes:
> ---OK, it has been over a week since this posting and I still haven't
found
> anything. When did IHC Own Diamond? Diamond was under it's own
ownership in
> the from the beginning by a guy from Chicago until was bought by
GM/White
> (When Diamond T was created), was it not? Never in the history of
Diamond
> have I heard of IHC having any hand in the company. Did I miss 
> something?