Once the largest truck manufacturer in the world, the Republic Motor Company of Alma, Michigan, ultimately faced a tragic end. Tim Gosling recalls the vital work of this automotive stalwart
In 1918, the Republic Motor Truck Company of Alma, Michigan, was the largest truck manufacturer in the world – having the capacity to produce an astonishing 30,000 trucks a year, and having manufactured one in nine of all trucks then on the road in the United States of America.
Unsurprising, the company was a major contributor to the war effort, producing vehicles for the US and the French Army. However, like many other companies, although it did very well during the war, it struggled in the years of peace that followed the armistice.
The reason the name ‘Republic’ is virtually unknown today as a manufacturer of military vehicles is because very little of its military production actually left the factories under the company name. Instead, like several others, the company contributed its manufacturing capacity to the production of military trucks built to a generic design, these being the Standardised Liberty B and the Light Aviation. The name Republic did not appear on any of the components of these vehicles.
