The story behind the door art on my truck.
I bought the truck in 2015 and discovered that it was originally owned by the Alaska Road Commission, the federal agency tasked with road construction in Alaska. With Alaska Statehood in 1959, it morphed into the Alaska Department of Transportation, and their white trucks still sport a stripe of Omaha Orange.
I decided that I'd restore it in the same color and with the original markings on the door. The picture on the left was from a story posted on the internet by Bob Leitzell, a bridge engineer who worked for ARC back in the 1950's. I had a friend reproduce the logos in vinyl to put on my truck. The ARC equipment was numbered (I couldn't find the original number of mine) and I contacted Mr Leitzell to ask what the first digit was. He said it was 2631. Since the truck pictured was earlier than mine (no vent windows), and Bob had sent me another picture of him in a 1953 (pushbutton door handles and 53-54 hood badge) numbered 2729, I was going to settle on 2696, just because it looked good, but when i was putting the numbers on, my wife suggested 2651 since it's a '51, and so it came to be.
I have no idea of when the logo started being used. I have pictures of older Alaska Road Commission trucks that just have "ARC" on the door along with an equipment number. Every AD series truck I have pictures of has the bear logo, but I have seen similar year trucks of other makes with just "ARC" on the door.
(Yes, Otto, I missed the logo location slightly).
