Legacy Power Wagons

kscarbel2 · July 21, 2015

Forbes / July 20, 2015

Winslow Bent found himself unemployed in 2008, staring down the Great Recession. When he saw a 1940s Dodge Power Wagon in a field near his home in Jackson Hole, he turned to his childhood passion for solace. “It was such a cool looking truck. I bought it,” he says.

His winter of discontent was spent disassembling and learning the secrets of the Power Wagon, a slow but impossibly tough civilian vehicle first launched in 1946, based on the Dodge WC military vehicle that helped turn the tide for America in World War Two. No less a man than General George Patton preferred the Dodge WC Command Car for his campaigns in Africa, Sicily and the push from Normandy into Germany.

Not long after Winslow completed that first Power Wagon, someone saw it roaming Jackson Hole and offered to buy. Negotiations were simple. “It’s built so you can drive it everyday. I have at least a hundred grand in it,” Winslow offered up. The buyer replied, “I bet you do,” and wrote the check.

After selling the truck, Winslow did not know what to do next. His wife had an answer: “You’re already doing it. Build another one. Just get an ‘Open’ sign.” He named the company Legacy Classic Trucks. His second Power Wagon sold for $150,000 before it was done.

Winslow learned the basics of engineering development and industrial design in childhood, working at his family’s company in Chicago, which fabricated stainless steel manufacturing equipment. After the second Power Wagon sold, he focused on serious product planning, defining a vehicle that he could build, over and over, repeating established processes based on readily available components with the goal of delivering reliable service in harsh conditions. “These vehicles are reliable, and serviceable in the field. It means a Legacy can be taken out and driven hard every day,” Winslow says.

His winter of discontent was spent disassembling and learning the secrets of the Power Wagon, a slow but impossibly tough civilian vehicle first launched in 1946, based on the Dodge WC military vehicle that helped turn the tide for America in World War Two. No less a man than General George Patton preferred the Dodge WC Command Car for his campaigns in Africa, Sicily and the push from Normandy into Germany.

Not long after Winslow completed that first Power Wagon, someone saw it roaming Jackson Hole and offered to buy. Negotiations were simple. “It’s built so you can drive it everyday. I have at least a hundred grand in it,” Winslow offered up. The buyer replied, “I bet you do,” and wrote the check.

After selling the truck, Winslow did not know what to do next. His wife had an answer: “You’re already doing it. Build another one. Just get an ‘Open’ sign.” He named the company Legacy Classic Trucks. His second Power Wagon sold for $150,000 before it was done.

Winslow learned the basics of engineering development and industrial design in childhood, working at his family’s company in Chicago, which fabricated stainless steel manufacturing equipment. After the second Power Wagon sold, he focused on serious product planning, defining a vehicle that he could build, over and over, repeating established processes based on readily available components with the goal of delivering reliable service in harsh conditions. “These vehicles are reliable, and serviceable in the field. It means a Legacy can be taken out and driven hard every day,” Winslow says.

Working 18-hour days on his own was unsustainable, forcing Winslow to become a business manager, engaging fabricators and mechanics. “I posted photos of Power Wagons online,” Winslow says. “People started calling—guys in the energy business and timber, ranchers, from western Canada, the Bakken, Rocky Mountains, Texas. I found a market that went beyond local buyers who saw my Power Wagon on the road.”

“What’s so surprising is the number of people who recognize it, who know what a Power Wagon is,” says Mark Chenoweth, owner of the red Power Wagon seen here, and the retired COO of CoorsTek, a privately held technology company headquartered in Colorado that specializes in advanced materials like ceramic armor and proppants, the ceramic beads used in fracking.

Winslow’s development and production process differentiates his operation from hot rod shops building outrageous one-offs. “I build these trucks with off-the-shelf ‘crate’ engines. A Cummins diesel with 480 foot-pounds of torque, the engine that powers UPS and FedEx trucks, is my favorite. Or a 430 horsepower Chevy LS3 V8, which is not unlike what comes in a Cadillac Escalade or a Corvette Stingray. Or a Dodge V8.”

If the commissioned vehicle will meet Legacy’s standards for reliability, the owner can request any number of special items to express their unique vision of the Power Wagon. “If a customer wants Ostrich hide seats or a special gun rack,” says Winslow, “he can have them.”

The red truck seen here is special under the hood, powered by a variation on the supercharged Cadillac CTS-V and Camaro ZL1 V8, producing 620 horsepower. But it can be serviced at a GM dealership. “During the ordering process, I had a couple of criteria,” says Chenoweth. “I wanted a four-wheel drive vehicle as strong as Winslow could make it. For the powertrain my main criteria was the ability to spin all four 40-inch tires on dry pavement. That’s how we started.”

To achieve Chenoweth’s goals, Winslow turned to the GM engine catalog. “My Power Wagon is a sleeper,” says Chenoweth. “You’d never expect this truck to have so much power or ability.”

To build a four-wheel drive truck so strong, Winslow installed only the very best. “I can’t go to a gas station without attracting a crowd,” says Chenoweth. “The day I picked it up, I stopped at a station driving home and had one guy crawl underneath to see the Dynatrac axle. You read about these axles, but rarely see them. It’s what every off-roader would love to have.”

Winslow maintains good relations with his customers, following up on any number of issues. “The quality of the work is very good,” says Chenoweth. “And if you have a problem, Winslow will ask ‘How do we fix it? What do you need?’ His customer service is exceptional.”

Legacy Power Wagons are much like the American Bison Winslow adopted as his corporate symbol: run all day, tough beyond measure, ferocious when required. They may seem like gargantuan cartoon interpretations of the classic American pickup, but Legacy Power Wagons are in fact serious equipment for conquering inhospitable terrain.

In the Power Wagon, Winslow has a unique market proposition. “Jon Ward at ICON already had a handle on remanufactured Ford Broncos and Toyota Land Cruisers—I couldn’t add anything to that market.” But Power Wagons hold a magical appeal for a certain breed of highly successful men who can write the check.

Though Winslow will perform a similar modernization on a 1940s or ‘50s half-ton pickup truck, or work trucks from the 1920s forward, Power Wagons are his passion and the bulk of his business. Each vehicle takes 600 man-hours to build, with a starting price of $160,000. From the time they provide a 25 percent down stroke, customers wait about a year, with two additional payments required before delivery.

To date, he has sold 60, producing about one a month, though demand is high enough to double his production rate. If he found distributors in the Emirates and a few other centers of wealth where a tough vehicle is appreciated, he might produce 50 or even 100 vehicles a year, though the population of suitable Power Wagons is not boundless. At such sales volumes he might be forced to digitize frames and bodies and start producing his own, a move that would demand a far steeper rise in sales volumes—he’d become a real manufacturer.

For now, Winslow is part of America’s high-tech cottage industry, with a mix of CNC-produced high-quality parts, a “UPS and FedEx” supply train for major components like engines, transmissions, axles and air-conditioning that arrive when needed, and all of it pulled together with old-fashioned craft work.

Winslow strikes themes that echo Ronald Reagan’s inaugural addresses. “These trucks speak to the expansion of the American West,” he says. “They tell the story of America from the 1940s into the 1960s. Men heading into the wilderness to build a ranch—felling trees, building roads, putting up telephone poles, figuring out where to place a dam.” For perspective, it’s best to remember that Alaska, our last wild frontier, became a state in 1958, near the halfway point of the Dodge Power Wagon’s production life.

Winslow scrounges across North America for well-preserved Power Wagons, or the earlier military variants, known as WC. “Winslow will send photos of whatever he has found. If it’s not what you want, he will look for another,” says Chenoweth. Each Power Wagon or WC has a back-story. “I figured out early on that when I rescue one of these trucks, under the surface they have a story to tell. I document what I find. These trucks have a real American Tough Guy persona.”

Some of the stories are compelling enough for a cable TV documentary. “We had a Dodge Carryall, a four-door wagon built for the military, a precursor of both the post-war Power Wagon and the American SUV. When we sanded the doors we found military insignia. I tracked the vehicle’s ID numbers. It had served in Tunisia in World War Two, fighting Rommel’s Afrika Korps. It was a radio scout truck. They’d drive around the sand dunes and if they found Germans, they’d call in the position, and in came the fighter planes and artillery shells. When we opened up the bodywork, we found a German harmonica caught in the A-pillar. We restored the harmonica and included it with the Carryall. That resonates with my customers. These trucks have a heroic component.”

“The World War Two history of the Dodge WC is a big part of the appeal,” says Chenoweth. “After the war Dodge evolved it into the Power Wagon, the first generation of the American hard-working truck.”

Winslow’s clients don’t want historically accurate concours restorations, though the workmanship throughout is to concours standards. “Stock, original Power Wagons can conquer any terrain, carry thousands of pounds,” says Winslow. “They have winches, tool boxes, ammo boxes. But the downsides are an 80-horsepower flathead six engine that was unimpressive 70 years ago, and a top speed of 40 miles per hour if you have a tail wind. You saw at the steering wheel, wishing your way around corners. The rear suspension is stiff to support heavy cargo—they rattle the spine. A stock Power Wagon is for display, not real driving. Stock Power Wagons are too primitive to serve as daily transportation.”

“Legacy delivers a 1940s or ’50s Power Wagon,” says Winslow. “But we’ve made it workable, with plenty of power, real brakes, a better ride, comfortable seats, air-conditioning, a nicely finished interior. You can drive it to northern Alaska and expect it to work. I know. We have customers who’ve done it.” Legacy pursues a thoughtful process that retains all the Power Wagon’s design appeal and alluring character, but raises everyday performance and comfort to the standards of our time.

Mark Chenoweth concurs. “My Power Wagon is surprisingly comfortable for a vehicle like this. After showing it for awhile, this will be my daily driver here in the Rocky Mountains.”

Legacy Power Wagons are serving in wild landscapes all around the world: New Zealand, the Middle East, Mexico, Africa, Canada, and the American West. “Owners might only use the vehicle for a month during a fly-fishing vacation at their second home in Montana, but they can let it sit for 11 months, then drive it anywhere they want to go fishing, under any conditions. Or they might drive it every day, relying on it in harsh country.”

Related pictures - http://www.forbes.com/sites/markewing/2015/07/19/legacy-power-wagons-super-sized-pickup-and-suv-king-of-the-wild-frontier/

Legacy Power Wagon website - http://www.legacypowerwagon.com/

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