[Hallicrafters] International Harvester Mag - Gatti

[K9ze at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/3/03 7:40:14 PM Central Daylight Time, 
dfischer at usol.com writes:


> OK, I plead dense as Plum Bum on this one. What does International 
> Harvester
> have to do with Hallicrafters? I thought they manufactured farm implements.  
>   
>     
> Enlighten me, what have I missed in the translation?     
> 
=====           =====
Morning everyone,

You have to get caught up with your Hallicrafters and International Harvester 
History Duane. . . . .
Gatti tried using many different makes of trucks over the years of his 
African safaris and finally settled on International Harvester manufactured trucks 
in the mid to late 1940's.  The 1947 expedition was like a rolling 
International Harvester ad.  They had a number (10-15 ??) of modified trucks and trailers, 
and had one large streamlined (for the 1940's) truck that was crammed with 
all the Hallicrafters gear you can imagine.  My Elmer, W9AMU, made a number of 
contacts with Gatti in the late 1940's, and I'm certain I have at least one of 
his QSL cards.  International Harvester in New Jersey was his QSL manager.

The little known secret to Gatti having gone with International Harvest was 
that they built and developed a major service center in Nairobi - - - which is 
still in operation today.
One more interesting fact that doesn't seem to be all that well known is that 
Harvester has at least one film in their lending library that documented much 
of Gatti's expeditions.  Would be interesting to find out if it might be 
available on video tape.
The International Harvester brochure/magazine that Kirt Shore is selling is 
just one of many of its type that was published by Harvester in the 1940's and 
1950's advertising the sturdy  reliability of their trucks.  Apparently, at 
least one of their trucks that was used during the expeditions was packed with 
all the latest photographic and film gear that was available.  There was both a 
photography and a film crew, and there were supposedly a number of films 
made, including at least one complete motion picture.

Hope that's of some help and interest.  Attilio Gatti was an amazing man, and 
his exploits - - - and especially his relationship with Hallicrafters; is 
some fascinating reading. . . . .

Best regards,
Ron Hensel, K9ZE
Roanoke, Indiana


--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
or had an attachment.  Attachments are not allowed.  To learn how
to post in Plain-Text go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html  ---