My name is Winslow Bent and I built a 1946 Schwab Power Wagon.
Schwab contacted me and were interested in a vehicle from 1946 because this is the 75th anniversary of the golf tournament and we quickly identified the 1946
Dodge Power Wagon as being the ideal candidate.
Building the Schwab Power Wagon was very, very cool for me because Schwab had some design elements that they wanted tied into the vehicle.
For example, on the front cowl and on the tailgate, it used to say Dodge.
So what was the actual font?
How did this actually lay out?
I wanted to be able to recreate that so it says Schwab.
And it's very cool how it just looks like the original, but it's been just slightly tweaked.
The color of this truck is a dove blue.
It is a non-metallic paint and it has just that look of kind of the old single stage, like the colors right there.
There's not all that clear coat and everything over it.
So the blue is just coming at you.
And then as we polish that paint, it just starts to get this depth to it.
And finally, the tartan plaid that has been part of this golf tournament.
A lot of times I think just kind of less is more.
So we shot a little bit of that tartan on the lower door panels and the keyring , you'll see there's a little bit of that plaid and it just starts to tie everything together.
The 1946 Power Wagon that we've built is really a reinterpretation. If you were to drive one of the original Power Wagons, you know, the steering's not like a modern car.
The brakes aren't like a modern car.
If you get one of those things up to 35, 40 miles an hour, you feel like you're really moving.
So how do we reenvision this truck?
How do we have it maintain its roots in its authenticity, but bring it up to 21st century standards?
We started with completely disassembling it down to a bare frame.
We keep the original chassis of the vehicle because I see that as part of the soul of the truck.
But we make upgrades so the hood and the radiator opening are quite small and that goes back to its military roots.
So this Power Wagon is powered by a Chevy LS3.
It's a powerful V-8, but one that could easily be packaged in that small space.
We paired that to a 4L85, four-speed automatic.
That's a very robust one-ton transmission.
And we connect up to an Atlas twin-stick transfer case, meaning I can control the front axle and the rear axle separately, via two sticks that come up through the floor.
You know, one of the calling cards of the Dodge Power Wagon is the big open fenders.
You've got the bug eyes and then you've got a huge bumper.
Inside that bumper originally was a power take-off winch, which looked very, very cool.
But by today's standards, those things are dangerous.
So we have remade the bumper.
It's all made out of quarter-inch steel.
We dropped a full-size, worn 12,000 pound winch into the cradle.
And finally, for the suspension, we wanted to maintain leaf springs, but we reengineered the springs with a little more forgiving spring rate.
And this truck features a 40-inch tall, 13.5-inches wide open country mud terrain tires on a 17-inch rim.
That is an enormous tire, but these are the roundest, best, straightest driving tires that you can get.
And it makes a huge difference.
When you're restoring one of these vehicles, it has to be something that yes, it's historical.
Yes, it's very, very cool. But it just feels like something I want to drive.
With the upgrades that we have made to this Dodge Power Wagon, anyone can drive it.
It's a modern fuel-injected engine so there's not chokes and levers you need to pull.
All that stuff's gone.
You can go 80 miles an hour down the highway with one hand on the wheel.
And that's certainly not something you would have wanted to try and do in 1946.
I would like to say congratulations to the winner of the golf tournament, and I truly hope you enjoy this truck as much as we have enjoyed building it.
This is really a special, special piece of American history.
It just oozes cool.
It's my hope that you will go off-roading and hunting and fishing and crash through the woods.
This is not a showpiece.
This is a real truck designed to be actually work.
And I want to see this thing all covered in mud and back out there doing what it was designed to do.
And I truly hope you enjoy it.
As a little extra, when you open the door, you will notice that there is a knife there.
The steel of that knife is actually made from the leaf spring of this original Power Wagon, which was this beautiful high carbon steel.
And now you've got a piece of the original vehicle that I hope will live with this truck forever and ever.