1924 Graham-Paige Truck

Ray, Joseph, and Robert Graham were born into an Indian farm family. They got their start in the auto industry by converting Ford cars into one-ton express or stake trucks using a rear axle of their own design. They soon graduated to the manufacture of truck bodies for passenger car chassis and were offering their own line of trucks by 1920. Their success attracted the Dodge Brothers who were looking to enter the truck market. Through a deal signed in 1921, the Grahams built trucks solely with Dodge engines and drive trains, for sale exclusively through the Dodge dealer network.

Source - AACA Museum

Indiana-born Joseph, Robert, and Ray Graham brothers were all college educated and worked together at a bottle factory. The brothers later acquired the company and renamed it the 'Graham Glass Company.' They sold it to Libbey-Owens right before the market for glass bottles deteriorated. With their new-found free time, they began marketing kits for truck conversions on the Ford Model Ts, Dodges, Cadillacs, Hudsons, and many other trucks.

By 1920 the brothers were producing complete trucks powered by four-cylinder Dodge engines and dubbed the Graham Brothers Speed Truck. Their relationship with the Dodge Company came even more integrated in 1921 when they entered an agreement to market and service their Gram Brothers trucks with Dodge. The following year, Dodge was building the Graham trucks in the Detroit factory and the Graham brothers had become vice presidents of Dodge. Their lifespan at Dodge would be short-lived; in 1925 the widows of John and Horace Dodge sold the Dodge Brothers Company. The Graham brothers left and eventually purchased the Paige-Detroit Motor Company, which later became known as the Graham-Paige automobile.

The Dodge trucks would carry the Graham Brothers nameplate until 1928 with a few of the designs lasting as long as the 1930s.

By Daniel Vaughan | Apr 2008