For the ultimate in off-road flexibility, in the 1950s a Canadian company offered a conversion for popular trucks that allowed the chassis to pivot in the middle.

As any off-road enthusiast will tell you, the trick to negotiating rough terrain with a 4×4 vehicle is keeping all four tires firmly planted on the ground. But naturally, there will be times when the surface becomes so uneven that even this basic task is no longer possible. To address this basic problem in the most direct way possible, in the early ’50s the Willock Truck Equipment Company of Vancouver, British Columbia came up with this solution: the Willock Swivel Frame. This conversion allowed the rear half of the vehicle to rotate on the chassis’ longitudinal axis, keeping all four wheels on earth. The feature is more commonly seen on large equipment.

The photo above shows the simple yet rugged chassis modification. The frame rails were cut in half just behind the cab and a pair of extremely stout crossmembers were welded to the ends. A set of equally robust steel-backed, bronze bushings formed the chassis pivot, and while the loadings must have been enormous, the setup was quite reliable, reportedly.

Willock advertised the conversion for all popular truck makes (see brochure below) but  the modification was most popular on the 1946-up Dodge Power Wagon, already one of the most rugged off-road utility vehicles on the market at the time. Accounts vary, but reportedly somewhere between 40 and 100 Power Wagons were equipped with the Willock Swivel, and just as you would expect, the novel setup is highly sought after in the Power Wagon enthusiast community today. Owners report that despite the radical chassis modification, the setup drives just fine at road speeds on pavement. While the articulated chassis never caught on with consumer-sized off-road vehicles, the feature is commonplace in large dump trucks in the construction industry.

Lead photo courtesy of the Petersen Automotive Museum.