Where to search for a family truck?

[BarracudaBoy]

Originally Posted by Bud Tierney

BB: Still here??...Lost your post on the other site, couldn't get it up on searching, so registered here...
Fascinating history; the usual inconsistencies, of course.
Production, from the portion of ref's I've gone thru, seems to've been more a custom building operation than actual serial production...
Have you found any reliable ref's that any of the trucks were assembled/built with the Knight engines, or if any of the Edwards cars were assembled/built in Louisville??? (Still have batch of ref's to go thru)...
Also interesting about the in-house 5x51/2; everyone and their Uncle (pun intended) was building engines in those days, and they may well've cast a few (assuming they built/had a foundry) altho I'd assume crankshafts and such internals, as well as the named externals, came from a supplier.
One would assume there'd be Longest descendants in Louisville, and the local papers of the period, considering the size of the operation, should have fairly complete coverage, or is your search something you'd prefer to keep under your hat for now??

The Longest Bros had no direct descendants. A niece of theirs died recently.

I haven't been able to find much info about whether Edwards and Stoddard followed though on the deal to continue producing Longest Trucks or not. That time period was right when some manufactures (like Ford) really took off and started squeezing a lot of smaller guys out of the market. It would be surprising if a "orphaned" make like the Longest Bros truck made it though the scrap drives of 2 world wars especially with a unusual designed engine like the Knight sleeve valve engine. Heck, I would be awesome to just find a radiator with "Longest Bros" on it! Posted the question on the American Truck Historical Society Forum also. But looks like it is as long a shot as I thought.

http://forums.aths.org/176217/Looking-for-Early-Truck