Automobiles, in various forms, have been around for over 250 years; they’ve been reasonably commonplace for about a century. That’s a long time to be driving around, especially driving around like a loon, which people have been doing for a long time as well. I think I like knowing that.
There’s a great old video that seems to have been a promotional video for the Dodge Brothers, which is what Dodge was known as prior to being bought by Chrysler in 1928. The video is from 1922, and features one of Dodge’s four-door, four-cylinder sedans, which featured a 3.5-liter engine making all of 35 horsepower.
This was one of the first all-steel-bodied enclosed cars to be sold in real quantities, too, which makes if also a bit of an unusual choice for its starring role in this film. It’s widely assumed that this film was used for promotional purposes by Dodge Brothers (the side of the car seems to be painted to say OIL FIELD and I think DODGE below that), so showing the strength of their all-steel body was likely a priority. They definitely do that.
These Dodges were pretty simple and rugged cars, which is amply proved in this video. Oh, just watch it, why not:
Pretty amazing, right? Look at the condition of the ground there; it looks like it’s made of about three feet of chili and maybe some coleslaw mixed in there. That Dodge’s skinny tires just cut through the muck and somehow propel that surprised-looking car (I think the expression is all in the headlamp position) absolutely everywhere.
Watching the driver of the car try to kick away that all that sticky muck from the car’s wheels makes me pity his boots and socks, and demonstrates extremely well what a sticky mass of goop that car was driving through.
I think the peak is when the car rolls over on its side, only to be flipped, by a couple of muddy dudes, not directly back onto its wheels, but onto its roof, then its wheels, whereupon it takes off again like nothing happened.
It’s an incredible and effective promotional video, and it’s more remarkable when you realize that this wasn’t some special off-road offering from Dodge: this was just their default, entry-level family car, the same one someone cross-shopping a Model T would look at.
Can you picture something like this being done with, say, a Camry? I don’t think I can.
My 1917 Stephens never gets stuck but it does go slower and slower as you gear down to walking speed climbing hills. The most treacherous terrain I have attempted is a muddy field after a car show.
Here’s a toast to the courage and insanity of old timey people. This is batshit and some of the most entertaining offroading I’ve ever watched! Were these cars 35hp with 3,035lb-ft of torque? How is this even possible‽
Sort of. That hp peak was probably 2k or maybe even less with redline not much above. The ratings on engines back then can’t really be related to modern equivalents when you picture the relative work capability in your mind—they made a lot of torque, but they didn’t rev high at all, so the hp number is naturally going to be low. Those hard, skinny old tires with minimal tread being able to get traction, though, is astounding.
The driver’s boots in the mud-kicking scene took me back to some photos of my father (who was born in 1904) when he was a road surveyor in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains about the same time this Dodge film was made. He, too, wore knee boots with the pants tucked in. Besides shots of him on horseback, or standing outside a wall tent, there’s one of him leaning against a truck cab. Perhaps it was a Dodge. He was a pudgy middle-aged white-collar worker by the time I was born, so the young stud version of him in those photos was so alien to me.
My grandfather had one of these and I think it was also a ’22, but only a few years newer if it wasn’t. His only comment about it that I remember was that you could hit the fender with a hammer and it wouldn’t make a dent.
When I was a kid it was a thing at various charitable fairs to have a “car smash.” For a dime or whatever you got to beat on an old car with a sledge hammer for a while. One time the car was some post-war sedan instead of something more current. The steel on that thing was so thick that even the big dudes could barely dent it. A lot of boasting and flexing and certainty of one’s strength ended with them slinking away.
Lightweight and momentum are hella useful. low speeds and some wreckless disregard for breaking things help.
Amazing! Not completely surprised though. Roads just didn’t exist yet, in the way we think of them.
The Ford Model T scores a 1,030 on a Ramp Travel Index (RTI), which is way ahead of a modern JK Wrangler Rubicon 2DR’s 769. https://www.hotrod.com/news/watch-a-ford-model-t-shame-jeeps-with-its-suspension-flex/
Thank you Andrew! This is what I come here for.
Here’s the video if your curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXhvwkFIv0o
Thank you. That is crazy. I need to build one of these for 4-wheeling now…
You’re most welcome!
Dodge bros have been around since the beginning, I see.
My Grandpa would tell a story of some shit his older 2 brothers pulled in the 1920s.
Oldest bro was the police chief of a town of less than 1K people.
Other bro was the fire chief.
Both were terrible alcoholics in their early 20s already. And dirt poor as well.
Both bros were out drunk one day riding around. Crossed the state line about 5 miles away from the UP of Michigan into Wisconsin. And decide some meat to eat would be nice to have. Younger bro shoots a cow with his rifle in a field. They decide to return later that night to retrieve the cow. Drunk as skunks by then.
Drive police car into field. Somehow managed to stuff cow into rear of cop car.
Try to depart. And realized that the weight of the cow and weeks of rain have caused the car to get bigly stuck in the mud…By then they were too tired to deal with it all.
So hitched ride back to Mich. and go to sleep.
Next morning the Sheriff from the Wisconsin town drives up with a flatbed truck to the house. With the cow. Grandpa’s bros agree to split the loot 50-50 with sheriff.
All hop back into truck and go retrieve the cop car from the field and the mud.
The farmer was never the wiser, and later filed a report of stolen cow…
No suspects ever detained, or questioned. Or arrested.
Holy Cow! What a story!
I once asked my Uncle about this story. About 1965. He finally stopped laughing and replied it was true. And the two bros were considered saints almost because once they got hold of a flatbed truck many more cows disappeared from Wisconsin thru the depression years. These were used to feed those who did not have access to free deer meat. No kidding.
A really different way of life back then for sure.
Wow, it’s like Rob Roy. Or Robin Hood if you’re not Scottish.
The Dodge Brother’s were infamous here in these parts ( South East Michigan, which is I where I live) They lived in HUGE Mansions in Grosse Pointe Shores but were drunken hooligans!!
Think of the restaurant scene in the Blues Brothers where Jake and Elwood went to persuade their band mate to rejoin the band. The Dodge Brothers were Jake and Elwood and the restaurant was Grosse Point Shores.
LOL. My other Grandfather who was from the Chicago area dealt with those two lunatics in his job during that time.
He also refused to ever buy a Chrysler, Dodge, or Plymouth.
I think they may have said something that pissed off my Grandma in a social situation. She didn’t put up with crass, rude, or crude imbeciles.
Despite the valued products their companies produced then.
The Dodge Brothers were known for their bar room brawls. Literally, BAR ROOM BRAWLS!!!!
Here is a good read about them, I have read it myself.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814332463/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Could those wire spokes possibly be helping to get some traction in the deep mud when the car sinks down to its axel? Kind of “whisking” the mud to the rear of the car, as it were. It’s hard for me to believe that those skinny little tires could possibly have the type of tread to be doing all the work on their own.
People smarter than I am — a low bar, to be sure — might be able to confirm or refute that this is even possible.
No. If anything I think spokes are likely to snap in sticky mud.
I’m excited to see the follow up article:
I just bought a ‘22 Dodge and I plan on driving to Moab on my honeymoon- David Tracy
There definitely needs to be a Vintage Days event at Moab with no vehicle less than 100 years old allowed. And yes, David needs this old Dodge to attend.
Ford straight up overlanded a Model T from one end of Canada to the other in 1925, even as a proper road network didn’t exist in a few parts of the country (they also threw train wheels on it in portions where even the offroading wasn’t feasible).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0thPDhkVK0
There is a 1921 Ford T, Kampkar/Lamsteed “overlander” in the Reno Car museum. Very cool.
Having driven a 1924 Graham Brothers truck with a Dodge Brothers engine and transmission, I can absolutely believe what happened in that video.
Go through anything? You bet!
Travel in a straight line on a paved road? Not really…
Attain speeds above 40 mph? Are you crazy?!?!
I’ll have to show this to my father. He’s just putting the finishing touches on his 1933 Dodge. He’ll be impressed.
I’m guessing the skinny tires and low weight have alot to do with it. They dig in enough to bite but don’t get so pushed down that the suspension starts dragging and taking some of the weight off the contact patches/causing more drag. I do wonder about the diff. Limited slip wasn’t invented till the 30s (I think) so maybe is was locked somehow? Could it really do that well with only one wheel pushing?
Also FYI, No 4wd on those, solid axels front and rear. I think my dad’s ’33 weighs in at about 2700 and it has the bigger I-6 so figure this one at maybe 2300-2400? Pretty light by todays standards.
Overall, the abuse this thing takes is nothing short of amazing. I love how when they tip it back onto it’s wheels, they check to see if the windows still work, and they do!
I think they rolled the windows down so they wouldn’t break when they rolled the car over.
Once it was shiny side up, roll ’em up and back to business!
Seems like something they’d learned from prior experience.
Bruh.
This thing is doing stuff FJs and Jeeps dream about TODAY.
Is it safe to argue that the low weight may have contributed?
JASON!
I want to know so much more!
Solid axle?Welded diff? (or equivalent)GVWR4wd? (surely not, right?)all the thingsThis is custom-made for a Jason-David follow-up collaborative article on the geekery and off-road prowess that this demonstrated at a time when roads were clearly a joke.
Please?