'Chad' vs 'Quad'

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Steve Guthrie posted on his illusive 'Chad' in the old forum, and Gordon replied asking whether in fact this was 'Quad' misspelt. In reply, Bob Moseley sent me the following article written by a friend of his on the subject of the ORIGINAL "Quad"... I thought it might be of interest so I'm reproducing the text therein, however if you want pics you're going to have to ask Bob yourself...

The Jeffrey (Nash) Quad
(A 4x4 truck used extensively in Europe during WW1
by Peter Stephenson – Member 1165)

During 2000 my wife and I went on a campervan holiday passing through outback Queensland on our way to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpenteria. One of our stopovers was at Winton, a small town known for its association with Qantas, the nearby Lake Quarry dinosaur fossil footprint stampede and the Combo water hole where the Jolly Swagman made his famous leap.

We visited the local museum where there is a life size diorama of the latter event and, out the back, housed in the obligatory museum sheds and lean tos’, are all kinds of memorabilia from a bygone era. The first to catch my eye was a 1920s International truck; the same as my father drove when he had a farm in the Adelaide Hills. Parked next to it was a most unusual and basic truck which consisted of a flat platform from front to rear supported by four large solid rubber tyred wheels which barely reached to the top of the tray. The driver’s cab provided very little protection from the weather and the engine was mostly above floor level as was the large forward mounted radiator.

It was not until I read the information board that I realised it was a Jeffrey Quad. Now I had read a little about these trucks and had seen a few pictures but had always dismissed them as a “one off oddity”. Seeing the real thing roused my curiosity and in due course was to show how wrong I was to regard it as a “one off wonder”. I asked the museum staff for any information and they provided me with a good start to search for more once I returned home.

The company which was responsible for the Quad was started by Thomas Jeffrey. He was born in England in 1845, migrated to the United States in 1862 and settled in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He manufactured Rambler bicycles starting in 1879 and, together with his son, produced Rambler cars from about 1900. Conventional drive trucks were made after 1912. Both were well-made and reliable vehicles and soon earned a good reputation. Thomas died in 1910. His son took over the business and changed the name to Jeffrey.

Shortly before WW1 the US Army was looking for a vehicle to replace their existing four-mule team and escort wagon. Ordinary trucks did not meet their requirements for “a truck that would, if necessary, travel 24 hours a day and go at least where the four mule escort wagon could go”. Early in 1913, probably due to the Jeffrey reputation, an army officer visited the factory for help and within a short period a 1½ ton truck was released to the army for evaluation.

It was the Quad and it was equipped with four wheel drive, four-wheel brakes (internal expanding) and four-wheel steer. It was powered by a four cylinder Buda 312 cubic inch petrol motor which drove through a conventional clutch and a four-speed constant mesh gearbox. Propeller shafts then delivered the drive to the front and rear via M S (Meuhl and S???) automatic locking differentials centrally mounted on the upper face of substantial I beam dead axles. Half shafts then delivered the drive, via universal joints mounted directly above the steering kingpins, to a pinion and internal tooth ring gear in each of the four wheels.

An advertisement from 1916 lists the cost of a Quad chassis at $2850 and that of a conventional same capacity truck as $1400. It is interesting to compare these figures with the cost of a Jeep some 30 years later.

In 1916 the Jeffrey Company was purchased by Charles Nash who had resigned as President of General Motors to produce a car under his own name. One of the assets of the transaction was the now, much in demand Quad, for the war effort. Production figures for the Quad, which was built from 1913-1938, are as follows:

1913 – 5,578 (mostly Quads with some 4x2 trucks)
1914 – unknown
1915 – 7,600
1916 – unknown
1917 – 3,800
1918 – 11,500
1919 – 4,090
1920 – 3,697

Production after 1920 dropped to only a few hundred a year, however for the 15 year life span, output totalled 41,674 Quads. They were supplied in great numbers to the Allied Forces in Europe during the war years. Quads were also supplied to fire departments, mining companies, municipalities etc., as well as private individuals. Two Quads were registered in the name of I.S Warnes of Koomooloo Station 70 kms east of Burra, South Australia. SA 8026 in 1917 and SA 01381 in 1918. It is likely that the vehicle in Winton is one of these vehicles, as it is understood that it came from South Australia many years ago.

And the other Quad, where is that? Maybe it’s still at Koomooloo patiently waiting to be rescued. Now that would be nice.

Bibliography:
Antique Automobile Quarterly
Rambler Family Album
Best of Old Cars
Book No. 5 Commercial Vehicles, Sporting Car Club of SA

[Ron Perry]

Geoff and Steve

In 2001 I made a serie of pictures of a surviving Nash Quad in France , it should be a similar vehicle.

Pictures can be seen at

http://wwi-cookup.com/afv/british/misc/nash.html

Regards
Ron Perry
ron@perry.nl

[Bob Moseley (RIP)]

Ron - an excellent set of photos of the Quad. I'll pass them onto my mate who wrote the article - Bob