Do you long for those carefree, happy days you spent in the United States Army? Not too many of us do, but one of the legacies of the American military is a present billion-dollar-a-year craze. 
It’s not the color khaki, no. It’s not the camouflage craze. It’s the sport utility motor vehicle.
There was a time when the person who drove four-wheel-drive vehicles didn’t drink cappuccino every morning on their way to transport their kids to soccer practice. There was a time when the person who drove four-wheel-drive vehicles weren’t welcomed at the opera and at the country clubs. There was a time when the person who drove four-wheel-drive vehicles were mainly men on missions be it for the Forest Service, the military, or utility companies. And the vehicle of preference for those manly men who got the job done was the Dodge Power Wagon.
Machismo appearance
It is a bit ironic today that Daimler-Chrysler, the company that owns the Dodge brand, also owns Jeep, because the ubiquitous Jeep and the Dodge-built M-37 truck essentially monopolized the military four-by-four scene in World War II. Of course, several companies built the Jeep, including Ford and Dodge, Willys-Overland, and there was a wrestling match for the Jeep trademark at war’s end. Willys won that battle, and the Jeep went on to become the symbol of the civilian off-roader thanks largely to its low price, rugged construction, and constant appearance on Roy Rogers TV show. With its victory based largely on legend, Jeep has managed to outlive three companies that have owned the brand – American Motors, Willys, and Chrysler Corporation.
While Willys was taking the Jeep to the people, Dodge, a company that has a legitimate claim to off-road heritage, took its civilianized version of the M-37 in another direction. It considered the model it first called the WDX unsuitable for private use for folks like you and me, so instead, the company’s marketing mavens decided to sell it as a commercial vehicle. And it was as a commercial vehicle that the Dodge Power Wagon, as it immediately came to be known, developed its special cachet. Produced between 1946 and 1968, the Power Wagon developed a cult following that is small in relative numbers but extremely fanatic in its devotion to the tough, cantankerous oddball of a vehicle that is so ugly it’s stunning.
Since it was intended for life as a commercial vehicle, the folks at Dodge did very little to domesticate the military truck for civilian use. The overall design was very parallel to the Dodge-built 3/4-ton weapons carrier riding on a 126-inch wheelbase. The closed cab version had a family resemblance to the Dodge VC series trucks, and the engine enclosure, front hood, and grille were similar to the T234 3/4-ton vehicle built by Dodge for the Chinese Army, which was popular for its treks over the Burma Road.
In military use, the M-37s were configured different ways, including as fire trucks, ambulances, and the aforementioned weapons carriers. Civilian Power Wagons also came in several types, and many did see service as fire trucks, especially in forestry work, but the most standard Power Wagon was fitted with a pickup box that measured eight feet long by four and a half feet wide with sides the sides of the pickup box about two feet above the bed.
Rugged yet homely lovely
Maybes because the vehicle was designed exactly with functionality in mind, it has a homely beauty about it. The rudimentary fenders give it a rough look that is accentuated by the separate headlights, upright grille, and split windshield. The side-mounted spare adds to the jaunty look as do the tall, heavily lugged tires on 16-inch steel wheels. Looking inside, one could grasp why Dodge executives decided the Power Wagon wasn’t going to be a private-use vehicle. Oh, they did add an amenity or two to the military version, but the 1946 WDX was none too plush even in the context of its era. Passenger and driver sat on a fairly narrow bench seat, and the driver was confronted by a paucity of gauges and a thin-rimmed, three-spoke steering wheel of impressive diameter – the Forties replacement for power-assisted steering. Three big levers protruded from the floorboards of the car, one the gearshift lever for the four-speed, non-synchromesh gearbox (can you say “double-clutch?”) and the other two the selectors for the New Process two-speed transfer case that engaged some of the engine power to the front wheels when the driver deemed that necessary. Just to demonstrate how rudimentary the base Power Wagon was, things like the armrest, the driver’s-side sun visor, overhead dome light and heater were optional. Power windows? Air conditioning? Be serious.
A look under the hood suggests the name of the vehicle was a misnomer. Some say the truck was called “Power Wagon” after a contemporary trucking magazine with that title. Whatever the motive for the name, the tried-and-true Dodge flathead six that resided under the front bonnet had a hard time living up to its billing. It offered just 94 horsepower from its 230 cubic inches of displacement, and some said that if dew formed around the sparkplugs, it wouldn’t run at all. But the Power Wagon rapidly built a go-anywhere reputation based on its solid four-wheel-drive system and the beauties of torque multiplication. Evidently, with a compression ratio of about 6.7:1, the Power Wagon’s engine wasn’t going to produce a lot of, well, power, but the vehicle’s designers helped offset for this with extremely low (high numerically) final-drive ratios, ratios that might have seemed more suited to farm tractors. Buyers had their option of the highway-friendly 4.89 rear end or (good night!) the super-stump-pulling 5.83. If the buyer picked the former, he might be able to travel the Forties fast-lane at 50 miles per hour. The latter restricted top end to not much higher than 45 mph.
While these numbers are far from exhilarating even for the Forties, one must remember that this vehicle was intended for work and dirty, difficult off-road work at that. It was this kind of job in which the Power Wagon showed its greatness. It is deficient in power for high-speed off-roading, but it had the torque and power multiplication to slog through just about anything. And if the engine couldn’t pull its drivers out of the dirt, the Power Wagon’s optional 10,000-pound winch could be hooked up to a tree or a sturdy rock to help extricate it from the predicament.
Power Wagons over the years
Like the contemporary Land Rover, the Power Wagon also could be bought with a power takeoff system. This allowed the vehicle to be used as a stationary power source to run implements like pumps or saws. A governor kept engine power at a steady level in spite of changes in load. The only hardship was the rear wheels had to be removed first.
Other producers, including Mack, had built four-wheel-drive commercial trucks dating back to the pre-Word War I era, but Dodge factories in California and Michigan started turning out Power Wagons considerably before Willys introduced its post-World War II 4T. Despite this, Dodge’s heritage as a four-wheel-drive vehicle producer is largely unheard, though the division has been showing a concept vehicle it dubbs the Dodge Power Wagon at recent auto shows.
As you might expect, over the years, Dodge made innovations to the original truck, the most conspicuous being the shift to a 251-cubic inch version of the flathead six. But that modification, which added another 20 horsepower or so, didn’t come until 1961. Even before that, in 1955 the Power Wagon was somewhat modernized with a higher compression ratio, synchromesh transmission, and aluminum alloy pistons. In 1956, power steering became available.
Power Wagons continued to be equipped with custom bodies, including fire engines, school buses, tow truck rigs, and stake bodies. In 1957, Dodge launched a second line of four-wheel-drive trucks and invented decades of confusion by also calling them Power Wagons. These have the version designations W100, W200, W300 and W500. These trucks offered more conventional styling, modern and many are quite handsome in their own right, though they lack the bulldog look of the original.
In total, close to 100,000 Power Wagons in one form or another were sold from the beginning of production in 1946 until it closed out domestically in 1968. Even after that, Dodge continued to manufacture export-only models as late as ten years later, when the vehicle was finally discontinued. Little did Dodge executives know then the size of the sport-utility vehicle market, a market they had assisted to create with the under-appreciated Dodge Power Wagon.
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