Posted by wisbaker on December 22, 2014 at 07:51:02 from (173.26.84.185):
In Reply to: Semis--Pete cab posted by Al Baker(pumpman) on December 21, 2014 at 17:14:23:
Reo was a Lansing firm founded by Ransom Eli Olds (yes the same guy who brought us Oldsmobile) Reo was struggling since the 30's the war bailed them out but when the war contracts ended they were in trouble again. They switched from cars to trucks and in the middle years they built lawnmowers and small engines and about anything else they thought they could make money on. The lawnmower stuff was eventually sold to Elmer Ponds in Indiana who used some of it to get the Wheel Horse company going. Reo merged with Diamond T to become Diamond Reo, they were a division of White trucks, I can't find any supporting documentation but I suspect White purchased both Reo and Diamond T and merged them much like they did with Oliver and Minneapolis Moline. In the early 70's Francis Cappaert bought Diamond Reo from White. What actually happened is debatable (we lived in Lansing Michigan and heard a lot of theories) Some say Cappaert had some bad luck and Reo went broke, others say he mismanaged it and it went broke, I've heard he played some games and took some risks and lost, some say it was a Union busting tactic that went wrong and still others feel Cappaert was paid to or made money by running Reo into the ground. As for the 6x6 contract I heard Reo had the parts to build out the contract when Cappaert took possession of the company but sent the parts back for the money figuring he could get a price adjustment on the 6x6 contract when he reordered the parts at a higher rate, well he didn't get the price adjustment. I've also heard that once he had the company Cappaert sold the tooling, fixtures and equipment to another company (that he owned) and leased them back to Reo, again trying to force a higher price on the government contracts and stripping assets out of Reo allowing him to keep the assets and shed Reo and any liabilities it had (like money loosing government contracts, pension obligations and such). My Dad worked there for 89 days it was a bad situation- you hired on for about $3.40 an hour, after 30 days you started paying Union dues but couldn't file any grievances. You'd get a substantial raise at 90 days but no one ever got to 90 days, at 89 they'd lay you off and hire another group of new hires at $3.40. They never had to move any of the new hires to Union scale (around $7.00/hour) or pay benefits like health insurance, vacations or pensions on their new hires. The Union was basically bought off with the 2 months of dues paid by the new hires for which they never had to deliver anything. Other accounts I've read and heard was that as the heavy truck market matured there were things changing, we had an over supply of manufacturers and capability and Diamond Reo wasn't one of the companies that positioned itself to become one of the big dogs in the new market. Remember in big trucks Paccar, Volvo and Mercedes Benz (Freightliner) are the big three.
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