Body Repair Students Take A Shot At Restoring Historic “Service” Truck

An auto body repair class in Iowa experienced a brush with history when it recently completed restoration work on a 1919 “Service” truck believed to have once been the property of legendary gangster Al Capone.

“Given its age, doing research on the truck and finding information was tough,” said Tim Weaver, the instructor of the class at Southeastern Community College in Burlington, Iowa. “There was also the stress of making sure we didn’t mess anything up, because we couldn’t go out and order new parts for it.”

The truck — now on permanent display at the Midwest Old Threshers Museum in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa — isn’t exactly the type of service truck usually featured in this magazine. But we’re making an exception because of the Al Capone connection. “Service” is actually the brand name of the truck, which was used for hauling freight, according to Bob Gerdes, president of the Old Threshers board of directors.

The Arledge Transfer Company once used this particular truck for freight transfers between Burlington and Chicago, which would have been about a four-day journey in the early 20th century, Weaver said.

It was a backroom deal

“The truck was given to Old Threshers over 20 years ago by the Arledge family,” Gerdes recalled. “It had been used by the Arledge Transfer Company for hauling general freight in southeast Iowa and hauling loads to Galesburg, Ill., and to Chicago.”

It’s how Arledge came to own the truck that’s the most interesting part of its provenance. The negotiation and exchange of money for the truck occurred at a bar on the south side of Chicago, where a representative for the seller kept going to a back room to work out the details with his boss, said Gerdes, who heard the story from a grandson of Arledge’s owner. When it was all said and done, the title handed over listed “Capone Enterprises” as the original owner.

“So it was assumed that Al Capone was in the back room,” Gerdes said.

Fast-forward to today and the truck certainly offered Weaver’s collision and repair students some interesting challenges given the type of truck, its age, and the materials they had to work with during the restoration.

“The truck had wood construction with a tin layer, which can be a challenge to work with,” explained Weaver, who has been teaching for 17 years. “But the truck was in fairly decent shape. It had a lot of paint build-up and we ended up stripping it all down and repairing lots of rust.”

Restoring the lights to their original brass finish was another accomplishment, Weaver said. His students were also interested in the massive, hand-crank engine, although they never tried to start it. One of his favorite features of the truck was an old toolbox containing an assortment of original tools that would have been used to do repairs, including extra bearings and some spare, all-leather belts for the engine.

Elbow grease removed grease

Gerdes, who is also the director in charge of all the Old Threshers’ museums, played a key role in arranging for the restoration work and is pleased with how it all turned out.

“The students had never seen, or worked on a vehicle this old, so they were amazed at the hard rubber tires and the truck’s open design,” said Gerdes, who also does his own restoration work on old automobiles. “Overall, the truck was in fair condition with rust on the running boards and old repairs on the main truck cab, but nothing that couldn’t be repaired. The hardest part of restoration was getting the old grease off the frame and chassis so it could get painted.”

For more information on the 1919 “Service” Capone truck and the Midwest Old Threshers organization’s heritage museums, visit www.oldthreshers.org.

Mark Yontz is a freelance writer from Urbandale, Iowa.