Jim Shover Always Wanted a Show Pickup. He Found This One in a Field in 1973.
Jim Shover has family all around him and they are very special to him. However, it does not take long to find another type of family in Jim’s life, and we believe if he could add the Shover surname to his Dodge, he would.
Jim’s “other” family member is a 1941, half ton, Dodge pickup WC. He found the truck, in a field, at the end of the drag strip in Milton 50 years ago. Jim paid $25 for the truck and paid someone $40 to haul it to his home in Burlington. He said the tires still held air, but mother earth was slowly reclaiming it with a tree growing through the frame. The frame was shot along with many other items on the truck, and years were spent collecting what he needed to bring the Dodge back, including the replacement frame.
Jim has “brought” this truck back in very fine fashion. A quick count of trophies over the years was in the neighborhood of 46 and counting. The person who sold the truck to Jim all those years ago was Claude Racine. We wonder how he would react to seeing the Dodge today.
Jim started his mechanical training in the automotive program at Burlington High School for part of his school day, with the other part at his home school at Rice for his academics. After graduation he decided to continue his automotive track at Franklin Institute in Boston. He was amazed at the level of detail that was taught there. He speaks of having to learn the amount of oil flow for each gear of an automatic transmission, as an example. This training lead to a career with the phone companies, New England Tel & Verzon, as a mechanic. You wonder what Jim could teach us shade-tree mechanics.
So what is this Dodge WC all about?
WC might mean something totally different to a non-old-car person who might have traveled Europe a bit. Dodge had another idea. They made over 380,000 truck and called them WCs, VCs and VFs for the military. Another category of the same truck was “job rated” for the civilian market.
These trucks ranged from Jim’s Dodge, a 2-wheel drive, 92 HP pickup to the one & a half ton 6X6 vehicles the military needed. All the trucks shared many common parts that could be easily interchanged.
Some say the WC stands for “weapons carrier”. Others say the W simply is Dodge code for 1941 and the C for the 1/2 ton rating. Books on the subject are still disagreeing on these designations It might have to do with the confusion of WWII.
The military use for Jim’s 2-wheel drive version of the WC Dodge varied. Some had bench seats for carrying troops, and others were simply called a “Carry All”. Some were set up as a panel van, while other were used for telephone installation and repair trucks.
The sweep of those fenders, however, lets us know the truck did it with class.
