Iowa 80 Trucking Museum will host a 100th Birthday party for its 1913 Rambler truck on Friday, July 12, 2013 at 2:30 pm. The event will coincide with this year’s Walcott Truckers Jamboree, July 11-13. The public is welcome to attend the celebration.
“This Rambler is a rare piece of trucking history.” says Dave Meier, museum curator. “Not many Rambler trucks were produced and this is the only one we’ve come across. We purchased it from a gentleman in Geneseo, Illinois. The truck had been used as a plumber’s truck in the Moline-Rock Island area.”
Thomas B. Jeffrey built and sold Rambler bicycles from 1878 to 1900. He was one of America’s first men interested in building automobiles. His experimental prototypes in the early 1900’s included such radical ideas as steering wheels and front mounted engines. A wide variety of styles of cars were built under the Rambler name, including trucks. Upon Jeffrey’s death in 1902, his son Charles took over the business and in 1914 renamed it Jeffrey, which became the world’s largest producer of trucks during WWI.
