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Origins
Autocar of Ardmore, Pennsylvania — America's oldest surviving vehicle nameplate — built the Type XXI in 1908 as it completed its pivot from pioneering cars to commercial vehicles: a sturdy chain-drive truck for the delivery trades of America's electrifying cities. The company's early innovations — it had introduced shaft drive and the porcelain spark plug to American practice — carried into commercial engineering that outlasted every passenger ambition. Trucks like the XXI established the specialisation that let Autocar survive twelve decades of consolidation, wars and ownership changes to build severe-duty trucks still today. The XXI is where the longest continuous story in American trucking properly begins. Choosing the unglamorous market turned out to be the century's best decision.
Display of Autocar UF21s · Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
