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Getting Hooked: A Tribute to Tow Trucks
When most people think of Tennessee they think of country music, Elvis, or whiskey. And with good reason. I mean, the state boasts Graceland, Dolly Parton and her theme park, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and, of course, Jack Daniels. Just to name a few. But next time you need a tow, tip your hat to Tennessee, because it’s also the home of the first tow truck.
Let’s be honest here, most people don’t think about tow trucks, not until the moment they need one, anyway. But tow trucks—and roadside assistance services like that offered through Hagerty Drivers Club—are more important than ever. Especially for those of us who choose to bear the financial burden of vintage car ownership. Because sometimes those joyous drives over winding backroads come to a grinding halt when some mechanical malady rears its ugly head. If you’re lucky it’s a simple fix, but even the most seasoned mechanic, or DIYer, has needed the dreaded hook of shame. The man to thank for the existence of that hook and the equipment it’s attached to is Earnest Holmes, Sr.
Now, we’ve all heard the old proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and the tow truck is no exception. See, Mr. Holmes was a mechanic, so broken-down cars were a regular occurrence for him. In the days before the tow truck, you either fixed the car where it broke down or you rigged some rope to pull it back to the shop. It certainly wasn’t the most convenient solution, but it worked, kind of.
Everything came to a head in 1916, when Holmes’ friend, John Wiley, managed to get his Model T stuck in a creek bed. Wiley was reluctant to abandon the T, but he knew he couldn’t get it out on his own, so he called Holmes for some help. And help he did. The recovery of the T only took eight hours, 12 strong backs, and some creative and likely sketchy use of blocks of wood and rope. But the camel’s back was broken, and Holmes was determined to find a better way to deal with these precarious situations.
He immediately started work on what would eventually become the world’s first tow truck. The car of choice was a 1913 Cadillac Model 30. Luxury cars were more powerful, larger, and built to a higher standard than the average car, so this the Caddy the perfect place to start for home-built trucks. Now, according to tow truck lore, the first few attempts didn’t quite cut it. More modifications to the Caddy’s chassis were needed to support the added weight, and the wrecker wasn’t quite up to the job either. But, Holmes was resilient and didn’t let a few set-backs stop him.
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By 1917, he had finished and patented the split-boom mechanical wrecker. The body was made from heavy-duty metal tubes, cables, pulleys, and hand-operated winches. It consisted of two booms and an early form of outriggers, which lowered to help support and stabilize the truck. One boom could be used to anchor the tow truck while the other rescued a stuck vehicle. Of course, if a car simply needed a tow, the booms worked in conjunction to lift the car and take it wherever it needed to go.
Word got around pretty quickly, and more and more people asked Holmes to build wreckers for their auto repair businesses. Eventually, he had so many orders for his wrecker, that he closed down the auto repair shop in 1919, formed the Earnest Holmes Company, and started selling the Model 485, so named because it sold for $485. This marked the beginning of the tow truck industry as we know it.
Holmes’ products weren’t the only game in town but they proved to be the most popular. Companies like Manly and Weaver built similar systems to the Model 485, but they were simpler and lacked the features that made the 485 so popular—things like the split boom and outriggers. Instead, they were more akin to a hand-operated crane than a traditional tow truck.
Holmes even supplied wreckers to the military, massive 6×6 monsters equipped with equally massive Model 45 wrecker bodies. A total of around 7000 were used by Allied forces during World War II and played an integral role in keeping things moving. After the war, as NASCAR started to gain traction (or in this case maybe lose traction …) the series used Holmes wreckers to remove dead cars from the track. Eventually even Indy Cars used them. By 1965, Holmes wreckers made up two-thirds of in-service tow trucks.
The split boom wreckers, Holmes or otherwise, were purely mechanical. This meant that when a vehicle was rescued or towed, the work was handled with pulleys and gear-driven winches. Even up through the 1970s, they were similar to the models from 1919. The winches evolved, however, and were driven off of a PTO (power take-off) engaged with a cable from inside the cab of the truck. The booms came together at a point, rather than being placed on opposite sides of the truck, and a pin was pulled to separate them. A seasoned operator could make quick work of a tow, but they were still tedious and difficult to operate, especially for a beginner.
The ’70s brought about a great deal of change for both the automotive and tow truck industries. For a long time, when a car was towed, the operator used something called a J-hook. Just picture a big metal “J.” The J-hook was attached to the frame of the vehicle, the control arms, or the rear differential. Chains would run up around the front of the bumper, and a sling made of thick rubber protected the car from damage as it was lifted. They were nicknamed “Slingbacks.” But as car design and safety regulations progressed throughout the decade, hooking to the frames and other components became increasingly difficult and proved more likely to damage the vehicle being towed. Especially as big chrome bumpers started to go out of fashion. Of course, this led to some innovative ideas from various companies.
One such outfit was NRC out of Quebec, which pioneered the first hydraulic under-lift system, called the NRC-500. Though not available in the U.S. at the time, it was still a huge accomplishment and solved the issues faced by slingback trucks in Canada. However, it was somewhat flawed. The design forced the vehicle to sit a long way from the rear of the truck, which meant almost all of the load was on the rear suspension. This led to increased wear on the tow truck’s chassis and suspension components. It certainly wasn’t ideal, but it was a step in the right direction.
In 1974, 1200 miles from NRC, a new company called Century Wreckers took shape in Ooltewah, Tennessee. At the helm was a familiar name: Gerry Holmes, the great-grandson of Earnest Holmes, Sr. Gerry decided to step away from the family business to develop the hydraulically operated tow truck, an idea that other companies in the U.S. thought was absurd—including the Earnest Holmes Co. But Gerry Holmes and his dedicated team knew it was the right move. The hydraulic trucks were quieter, simpler, and safer to operate than the old mechanical wreckers. Their bodies were also built on a subframe, so less modification was needed to install them on a cab and chassis truck. This meant the trucks could be assembled and sold at a faster rate.
Despite all those wonderful qualities, Century and its hydraulic trucks got off to a rocky start. It proved difficult to convince dedicated professionals that what they’d used their entire careers needed to be replaced. The higher price for a hydraulic unit didn’t help, either. But, just like his great-grandfather, Gerry and his team kept on going.
The development paid off in the early 1980s, with some massive game-changers in the industry. One of which came in 1983, when Century released the first commercially available hydraulic under-lift wrecker in the U.S., dubbed the Formula 1. The idea was similar to what NRC had built but with some much-needed improvements. The inspiration had come two years earlier at a trade show in England, in the form of lift gates mounted on box trucks. The hydraulic ram was mounted under the truck, not on the outside like you’d see in the States, and they could still lift the platform with ease. Holmes realized he could do the same thing with a hydraulic under-lift on his wreckers back home, and with the big rams out of the way, the vehicle could be pulled closer to the back of the truck and the weight distribution issue would be solved.
Progress didn’t stop with the hydraulics, either. The bed of the wrecker was sloped at the back, so the vehicle in tow could be pulled even closer to the rear of the truck, creating even better load distribution and further reducing the amount of stress put on the rear of the trucks to increase their service life.
Those new trucks were pricey, however, and smaller outfits weren’t always in a position to buy a whole new wrecker. So Century designed a retrofit kit that adapted the new under-lift technology to older tow truck models. The kits turned out to be a bigger hit than the Formula 1 itself. This ushered in a new era, and the old slingbacks started to disappear from the landscape.
The ’80s also saw the rise of the flatbed tow truck, which had begun to appear in the 1970s, with production by a variety of tow truck manufacturers. The car carriers were mounted to a standard one-ton truck chassis, just like the wreckers, but the heavy steel platform pushed the truck’s weight limit right to the edge. In 1977, Jerr-Dan launched the first car carrier to use an aluminum platform, the first of many improvements that would lead to the car carrier we see on the roads today.
The ideal load angle was around 10 degrees, but it proved troublesome for many builders—except for Landoll Corp. In the early ’80s, Landoll launched the Centerfold, which achieved a uniquely low load angle that set it apart from all competitors. From the outside, it appeared to be a standard car carrier, but it was called the centerfold for a reason: Just after the cab, the frame was severed and a large hydraulic hinge was welded in. When the driver activated the hinge, the hydraulic ram separated the two halves of the frame. And with the cab and the other half of the frame pointed toward the sky, the load angle was reduced to that magic number of 10 degrees. It was complicated, but it worked.
Century also managed a 10-degree load angle. Its design, released in 1986, was more conventional compared to the Landoll Centerfold and is pretty close to what you see on today’s trucks. Century improved reliability by employing the same innovations used on its wreckers. The carrier was mounted to a subframe, so the rear pivot point and hydraulic cylinder mounts weren’t welded to the truck frame. Not only did this solve the issue of cracked frames, but it meant Century could offer a 120-inch cab-to-axle carrier platform, something no one else offered.
This new longer platform and pivot point location all helped to get to the desired load angle. To test it out, Century took its new truck to a local Chevy dealer to try it with a new C4 Corvette. The long and low front end of the C4 made it onto the carrier without any damage. That was quite an achievement considering the C4 Corvette would scrape its front end on nearly every driveway in existence.
Today, car carriers still use some of the features found on those old Century models, like the subframe and the dual-sided hydraulic controls. To help with that pesky load angle, car carriers were eventually equipped with air suspension in the rear so the truck could drop, which made it even easier to load all sorts of low vehicles. They’ve also moved to a medium-duty truck chassis, rather than the old light-duty one-ton chassis of the past, and the addition of a hydraulic under-lift means they can tow two vehicles at a time. Some are even offered with special hinged platforms, so even the lowest car can be towed with ease.
Tow trucks of all shapes and sizes continue to evolve thanks to companies like Miller Industries, which produces the majority of the tow trucks in the United States. Century, Holmes, Chevron, Vulcan, and a few others all fall under the MiIller umbrella these days. Light-duty car carriers and wreckers are all modular, built to spec at one of Miller’s factories, and then shipped to dealers so they can be installed on a chassis. The electronics are standalone, so there aren’t too many modifications to the truck’s factory wiring harness. This makes installation and troubleshooting a lot easier for owners and their mechanics. Even the OEMs have moved cross members at the request of wrecker builders so their chassis are more accommodating. And with more cars on the road than ever before, the industry certainly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
It’s been over a hundred years since Earnest Holmes, Sr. sold his first wrecker, and the goal of the tow truck is still the same: to get disabled vehicles and their drivers safely off the side of the road—or maybe to get your new project car back to your driveway. Either way, the humble tow truck will be there to save the day.
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Really enjoyed this article!
I love tow trucks. I grew up next door to a guy who owned a towing company and his son and I knew how to hook a car by 12 years old.
Note too some of the truck were used for tree removal too.
He later started a machinery moving company and had a fleet of trucks. He did well and the roll back also were used for neighborhood projects.
He is retired but kept a fork lift and it is amazing all you can do with it.
By sheer “fortunate” timing, I was able to photograph a tow-truck TOWING a tow-truck.
I’ve got the photo here somewhere.
Like insurance, emergency candles & flashlights, we’re always glad that they all exist.
Better yet. In Cleveland a while back a tow company owner bought a new truck. He towed it with the old truck. He stopped at a local mall.
He came out and both trucks were stolen and never found.
The red squarebody Century Formula 1 in the opening photo is a sweet-looking truck and is now the mental image I have when I think ‘tow truck”. This is an interesting article, and it’s bringing out some interesting stories in the comments. So I’ll add mine: I’d just bought my 2002 Dodge pick-up and got a year’s free road-service and oil changes provided. They put a sticker in the window with a 1-888-number for roadside assistance. I stopped to drop a deposit in my bank slot on a Saturday, leaving the truck running (dumb, I know) and I guess I brushed the door lock switch on my way out. There I was, truck running, no cell phone, and wife was 50 miles from home at work. After trying several times to memorize the number on the sticker long enough to hike about 2 miles to a pay phone (pretty scarce items in modern times), I finally succeeded in getting it right. They called a tow truck service, who showed up in about 20 minutes with a great solution: break the slider window out of the back of the cab! Something I could have done with my boot heel an hour (and quite a bit of gas) earlier. Needless to say, when I showed up at the dealership on Monday with a broken window and my demand that they fix it and bill the tow company, nobody asked me if I was happy with their service…
We visited the tow truck museum in Chattanooga, TN and it quite extensive with a wide variety of tow trucks. Old, new, small, large and downright huge.
Well worth the visit.
I can’t believe you published this article without one mention of the Tow truck museum in Chattanooga TN! I was there in 2000. An informative and nice place to visit.
Let’s not forget the hazards of being a tow driver. I know of one family who’s lives were changed forever by a careless driver that killed their daughters young fiance. There are too many similar sad stories.
Eyes on the road.. always!
Great article. I’m surprised there’s no mention of the International Towing Museum in Chattanooga TN
( https://towingmuseum.com ). Worth a visit if you’re in town!
I worked for Ashton wreckers back in the early 80’s briefly. They had the Boss 500. Also did (known as ERS) conversions to pickup trucks. All sling trucks.
This 1940 Ford Cabover has always been a popular display at the California Automobile Museum., https://www.calautomuseum.org It always gets lots of attention among al the classic and antique cars on display.
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I was in Chattanooga in 2012 for a model railroad convention. I missed the tow truck museum but had the opportunity to visit Gerry Holmes at his home and view his large and wonderfully executed S scale layout. Had anyone mentioned the museum to me I would have made the effort to visit.
My mother worked at Ernest Holmes during WWII. After the war when new cars were hard to get she concocted a deal with a Pontiac dealer in Michigan that wanted a wrecker. The wrecker and her were driven to Detroit and she drove back her new Pontiac convertible. She always loved rag tops! I still live outside of Chattanooga, TN. I’m a salvage car dealer and my Century rollback is an important piece of the business. Awesome article.
My Father was a Chevrolet Dealer in the 60’s and 70’s. The dealership had a Holmes Body mounted on a early 50’s Chevrolet 1 1/2 Ton Chassis. I saw him do some remarkable things with that wrecker including pulling a fully loaded Semi Truck out of a ditch!
If you happen to visit Calgary, check out the Gasoline Alley Museum which has one of the earliest of the Holmes Cadillac-based wreckers.
Still have my BP livery j hook Matchbox tow truck.