Maritime-Ontario - back then - Part 1

From 1951 to 1977 the White Motor Company sold and serviced Freightliner Trucks under the White Freightliner name plate. Freightliner had been founded by Consolidated Freightways to build its own trucks, but they proved so popular that they needed a national presence, and made a deal with White, but kept ownership of the brand.
White, which produced trucks under the White, Autocar (from 1953) and Western Star banners was doing all right for a time, but eventually began to lose ground and Freightliner went its own way. Eventually Daimler acquired Freightliner and still owns it today.
White was insolvent when its assets were acquired by Volvo in 1983 and eventually merged with GM trucks. Autocar was discontinued (Boo!) and the name brand was sold and Western Star, which had been sold by White to Canadian owners, eventually reversed its way back into Daimler.
That's the short version of the long story, given here only as a preface to the main point. White Freightliners were immensely popular! The popularity continued and even increased in the post White era.

The Dartmouth, NS based Maritime-Ontario Freight Lines Ltd had a large fleet of largely Owner-Operator trucks, which had to display a blue and white paint scheme, but there was wide latitude in where and how that was applied.  There was also no uniformity in what make of truck the O-O's operated.
Not surprisingly therefore there were a number of White Freightliners in the COE days. All were built at the Burnaby, BC factory and usually had a "Canada" tag somewhere on the body.

Just in off springtime roads, this salt caked COE is carrying frozen fish.

M-O # 473

Another coat of salt after another trip.

M-O # 479

More fish, but this time a predominantly blue colour scheme. 

M-O # unknown

Similar colour scheme, but a single stack, and a bit shinier.

M-O # 550

In the early 1970s Freightliner began to build a conventional truck for the first time. Also with a light weight aluminum cab, they became popular over night, and M-O had their share.

 This rig looks quite new in 1978, so may be among the last built with the White Freightliner badge. 

Just back of the front fender and low on the hood of this one and the next two is the "Canada" tag. 

M-O # unknown

Another combo scheme, and one of the early wind deflectors.

In the background is one of the pair of Cyril L. Dauphinee trucks (both International Transtar 4200). That company had the contract to deliver newsprint to the local newspaper.

M-O # 433

There were still lots of White Freightliners on the road in 1980, by which time this rig had a good many miles on it, but still looked sharp. 

M-O # unknown 

The White name was deleted from the name plates, but there were no other changes. M-O # 549 is a Freightliner, while its fleet mate # 550 (see above) was a White Freightliner.

 Maritime-Ontario also had a lot of Macks on the road in the late 1970s and early 1980s, despite the awkward sleeper arrangement with the narrow R model cab. M-O # 587.

More on Macks in Part 2.

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