ever heard of a Klieber truck? Me neither, but the person trying to make this pile of rust and termite droppings go away claims it's a rare bunch of yard art junk (Thanks Doug!)

the oldest titled original California barn find, and a bit of San Francisco history because these trucks were built extra heavy duty specially for the steep hills of San Francisco.

1900 was the year Kleiber and Company was formed to manufacture wagons and buggies of Paul Kleiber’s own design. Kleiber had such high standards that it wasn’t long before the company gained a reputation for building high quality products, a standard that remained throughout his leadership. In the beginning he hired German craftsman and assigned a team to build all phases of the truck.

The first Kleiber trucks had hard rubber tires and no shock absorbers. Paul Kleiber did very little advertising. He believed that if you built a good solid and dependable product the word of mouth would be the best form of advertising. That philosophy must have worked because in the early 1920’s fleets of Kleiber trucks were hard at work for Shell Oil, Standard Oil (Chevron), American Can Company, Pacific Gas and Electric, Overland Freight, Transfer Lines, Del Monte and many other large companies. The steep and rugged terrain of San Francisco challenged any and all vehicles, but Kleiber trucks were strong, dependable and almost trouble free. The trucks were powered by Continental engines with low gear ratios that enabled the Kleiber trucks to follow those little cable cars climbing half way to the stars. Kleiber trucks were built so strong that one company used them to move large buildings.

By 1923 The Kleiber Motor company had employed 350 workers and was having a difficult time keeping up with production demands. The current facility had become too small and obsolete for his growing business and the aggressive plans for the future. His plans for a new factory would make Kleiber Motor Company the largest truck manufacture west of the Mississippi. Great care was taken in building the new facilities with consideration given to the employee’s needs and comfort. Large glass windows were installed that opened to give more natural light and better ventilation. After the new facilities were completed the labor force had risen to over 700. This location is now home to the San Francisco Mercedes Benz dealerships service center.

By 1924 Kleiber had gotten into building cars as well as trucks. Paul Kleiber believed that an automobile manufactured in San Francisco would be more suitable for the west coast terrain and would also eliminate shipping costs from the East. Paul Kleiber wanted to break away from the auto Cartel and the traditional way of selling vehicles through dealerships on San Francisco’s famed “Auto Row” on Van Ness Avenue.

Even though Paul Kleiber believed that his hand assembled cars were superior to ones made on an assembly line he couldn’t escape the fact that the Kleiber car was not distinguishable from any other car of the day. A Kleiber car sold for around $2,100 when a Ford was selling for around $500 and at the time people did not want to pay four times more for a car that drove and handled like a truck and looked like any other car of the day. By early 1929 Paul Kleiber was faced with two realities; sales of cars had fallen and that cars assembled by hand had become too costly. So instead of embracing the industrial age by installing an assembly line and reducing the quality he decided to cease production. In 1937 while the first tires were rolling across the new Golden Gate Bridge the last tires would roll out of the Kleiber Motor company.

This Kleiber truck was purchased in 1929 by the Pierce- Rudolph Moving and Storage Company. The truck was in use for them throughout the San Francisco city limits until the early 1950's when the truck was sold.

http://kleibermotors.com/

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