Trailer King

On the road to Detroit's airport, a half-mile-long line of cars crawled along bumper to bumper behind a huge trailer-truck. Suddenly one car swerved out of line, passed the others and drew up alongside the slow-moving truck. Out jumped a barrel-chested, thick-necked man who poked his head in the cab and said: "Why don't you pull over? You're the kind of guy that makes people mad at truckers."

The man who bawled out the truck driver was Roy A. (for August) Fruehauf, 42, president of the Fruehauf Trailer Co. As head of the company which puts more trailers (i.e., freight vans pulled behind trucks or "truck-tractors") on the road than any other trailer-maker, he has a public-relations job to perform. The trailers' size (biggest is 32 ft. 3 3/8 in. long, carries 25,000 Ibs.) plus the bad road manners of many of their drivers have helped stir up anti-trucking sentiment around the U.S., and given Fruehauf one of its biggest headaches. But though motorists fume, truckers think that trailers are just about the greatest invention since the gasoline engine.

Post Office on Wheels. Fruehauf's company "invented"' the modern trailer and has paced the trailer industry for 36 years. In 1915, Roy August Fruehauf, a Detroit blacksmith and wagonmaker, was persuaded by his eldest son, Harvey (then earning $7 a week), to build a trailer with hard rubber tires and open slat sides for hauling lumber. He didn't think much of it, but Harvey thought it had such possibilities that he plugged it in trade journals with the slogan: "A horse can haul more than he can carry. So can a motor truck." The slogan worked so well for Fruehauf that the company's small volume ($22,000) reached $700,000 in four years. Fruehauf kept right on growing, did much to build the modern long-distance trucking industry.

In its eight plants around the U.S. and Canada (headquarters: Detroit), Fruehauf now produces scores of stock trailer models, including refrigerator cars, liquid tank carriers, log haulers, livestock vans. But much of its business still comes from customers who need special trailers which

Fruehauf designs for them. For example, during World War II Fruehauf made everything for the Army & Navy from front-line field hospitals to portable command posts and searchlight carriers. Fruehauf's latest model for the Government: a truck post office. It is being designed so that mail can be sorted en route, thus cut delivery time.

In 1950, Fruehauf sales reached $132 million, 71% better than 1949. Sales in the first quarter of 1951 shot up to $41.4 million, almost twice the record of last year, and the net was $2,400,000, up 24%. Roy Fruehauf sees no reason why sales should not double this year, reach $260 million. Last week Fruehauf went to work on a new $50 million Government order, added to its backlog of $50 million in civilian orders and an earlier $50 million in military contracts.

Clogged Production. But Roy Fruehauf's problem is not selling trailers; it is making them despite material shortages. When truck tires ran short early this year, Fruehauf kept its production lines rolling by delivering trailers, removing the tires and using them for new deliveries, leaving customers to find their own tires.

The Government has now begun to listen to the truckers' plea for materials with a more sympathetic ear, has started to funnel more scarce materials away from light trucks to heavy truck & trailer makers. (By diverting rubber from civilian tires, rubbermen increased truck-tire output last month to 360,000 from 317,000 in March.)

Roy Fruehauf has found no such solution for the growing opposition to big trucks and trailers. State after state has been clamping down hard on truckers for overloading (TiME, Jan. 22). But Roy Fruehauf is not worried that the trucking industry will be seriously hurt. Said he: "Everything we eat, use, or wear travels by truck and trailers."

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