Coachbult.com - A.G. Hebb Quality Body Company



A.G. Hebb Body Co. - 1910s-1920 - Lincoln, Nebraska - Patriot Body Co. - 1920-1948 - Havelock, Nebraska & Lincoln, Nebraska

The Patriot Motor Company was formed in 1920 as an outgrowth of the A.G. Hebb Body Company of Lincoln, Nebraska. Patriot was located in nearby Havelock and was organized to make commercial vehicles in the 1 to 2 1/2 ton range. At the same time they manufactured truck cabs and bodies marketed as "Patriot Bodies" for at least other 20 other truck manufacturers.

Patriot Motor Company went into receivership in 1921 and was purchased by a group of local creditors. Within four years the reorganized firm was sold again, this time to a pair of Havelock real estate investors named Wood. The Wood truck appeared in 1926 and continued into production through 1931.

Although Patriot/Wood truck manufacture ended in 1931, the Lincoln, Nebraska body plant located at 10th and Vine continued to manufacture truck bodies as the Patriot Body Company through 1948.

Granville A. Bishop joined the firm in the early 1920s and later designed the firms refrigerated bodies, moving-van bodies and livestock bodies and trailers.

A faulty boiler blower motor started a fire that destroyed 250,000 board feet of lumber stored at the firms manufacturing facility at the corner of 10th and Vine in Lincoln, Nebraska on January 24, 1948. The fire ended the firms 40 year history and put 25 skilled Lincoln residents out of work.

Arthur Grainger Hebb.

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PATRIOT (US) 1918-1926

(1) Hebb Motors Co., Lincoln, Neb. 1918-1920

(2) PatriotMotors Co., Lincoln, Neb. 1920-1922

(3) PatriotMfg. Co., Havelock, Neb. 1922-1926

Patriot truck production started on October 1st, 1917 (1918 models! with the 1 ½-ton Lincoln and 2 ½-ton Washington models, both with 4-cylinder Buda engines and 4speed transmissions; final drive was internal gear on the Lincoln and worm on the larger Washington. In mid-1918 a change was made to Continental engines. The makers built their own frames and radiators, and also bodies which they supplied to a number of other truck makers including Douglas from nearby Omaha. For 1921 a new model called the Revere was added; this was a %-ton 'speed model' with pneumatic tires and electric lighting 'and starting, features still only optional on the larger Patriots. The Revere had a Continental engine, but for the larger trucks Patriot turned to Hinkley. Patriots were widely used by farmers for whom several types of bodies were supplied, and were also seen with bus and fire engine bodies.

Poor management led to the sale of the company in 1922 to the Woods brothers who continued production of trucks in 1, 2, and 3-ton sizes with Buda or Hinkley engines, Covert transmissions and Empire or Wisconsin worm drives. In 1926 they changed the name to Woods, and continued production for a further five years.

For more information please read:

Curt McConnell - Great Cars of the Great Plains

G.N. Georgano & G. Marshall Naul - The Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles

Albert Mroz - Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks & Commercial Vehicles

Denis Miller - The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trucks and Buses

Tad Burness - American Truck Spotter's Guide, 1920-1970

Tad Burness - American Truck & Bus Spotter's Guide, 1920-1985

Robert M Roll - American trucking: A seventy-five year odyssey

David Jacobs - American Trucks: A photographic essay of American Trucks and Trucking

David Jacobs - American Trucks: More Colour Photographs of Truck & Trucking

John Gunnell - American Work Trucks: A Pictorial History of Commercial Trucks 1900-1994

George W. Green - Special-Use Vehicles: An Illustrated History of Unconventional Cars and Trucks