The new RamZone Heritage blog series rolls on, this week traveling back in time to the early 1930s, when the 1934 Dodge KC Commercial Express first rolled off the assembly line and began turning heads on every street it rode. Credit for that goes to its sleek passenger-car styling, a look that earned Dodge trucks from this model year the collective nickname “Glamour Series.”
All glamour aside, the truck line was, according to the Walter P. Chrysler museum, “divided into two distinctively separate series—Standard and Heavy Duty. Standard models were powered by four- and six-cylinder engines, Heavy Duty models exclusively by six.”
Ram fans might recognize echoes of the Standard/Heavy Duty divide in the present-day line of Ram Trucks, with the award-winning 2013 Ram 1500 falling in the Light Duty (akin to Standard) category, and the Ram 2500 and 3500 grouped together in Heavy Duty. That might be where the similarities end, however. With 75 horsepower and a top cruising speed of 45 miles per hour, the Dodge KC Commercial Express represented the epitome of vehicle design in 1934 (not to mention an important step in the overall evolution of trucks). But stacked up against today’s Ram Trucks, with horsepower reaching easily into the 300s, it’s plain just how far we’ve come in 80 years.
Here are some other noteworthy figures belonging to the 1934 Dodge KC Commercial Express:
- Length: 207 inches
- Wheelbase: 111.25 inches
- Weight: 2,465 lbs.
- Engine: Inline L-head six-cylinder
- Transmission: Three-speed manual
- Displacement: 201.3 cubic inches
- Horsepower: 75
- Cruising speed: 45 mph
- Price when new: $500
Please visit RamTrucks.com to learn more about the performance capabilities of current-year Ram Trucks. To learn more about Ram heritage, stay tuned to RamZone!
