Smith-Miller Southern Pacific Tanker Truck

Just my opinion, but there are much better looking detailed model (toy) trucks available for a whole lot less money. First Gear comes to mind!

Of course, none of First Gear's trucks are over 3 feet long! A bit too big for O Gauge, but you could use all that chrome for a mirror.

I think I also had one of these trucks as a kid, a Mack 10-wheel flatbed. It was a special gift from my parents, and a big deal. I have a vague memory of going into the toy store in Minneapolis to pick it out. They weren't cheap in the '50s, either.

Very interesting.  This has brought back good memories.  When I was a boy in southern California, back in the early 1950's we had family friends in the country, who had citrus orchards.  Their son, my age, had the Smith Mack double tank truck -- Mobilgas, as I remember it.  (He also had another neat toy, a pedal-operated Caterpillar tractor with a blade on the front.)

Smith-Miller trucks were out of the price range for us, but I had a grand surprise on Christmas morning 1953. Santa delivered a Wyandotte cabover tractor trailer rig. The trailer was polished aluminum with a side door as well as rear doors. Later, when my grandmother arrived (after working a double shift at a mill in Lock Haven PA) I was presented with a Tonka tractor trailer moving van. My brothers and I wore those toys out over the years, but I replaced both some time ago. The steel in those toys was heavy!

I love the Smitty Toys, and their ads! I saw a S-M PIE tractor trailer a few years ago at a flea market and passed it up. Doh!!

yah  1095.00 for a toy truck.. toy is the key word..really

I played with it so much as a kid that the axle wore through and broke in half.

Someone who has, literally, run the wheels off!!!

Another nice group of such toys was the Doepke - my favorite was the giant road grader, which is available used on eBay now for under a hundred bucks all day long.

Perhaps plastic and mass production ran these sorts of toys, as well as Buddy L trains, right out of business.  I have never cared for plastic trains, model airplanes, trucks, or road graders.  Brass, steel, and die cast for me, with maybe a few aluminum tank cars.