Hi Tim. You said that your paint code is "W" and the cab appears to be red ?!? My '56 has the "W" paint code and the org. light blue-green color. That's interesting.Does the set of #'s after the paint end with a"B" ?
Timmy

 

Timmy:

No, there's no other code after the W. It is posible that the cab was a different color than red as all I could go on was to look in the hinge pockets for the original color. I'm pretty sure this truck has had a lot of mix and match of parts.

Tim Bowman

 

Marmon-Herrington is the All-Wheel-Drive conversion speciality company that is being referred to, and is still in business today in Louisville, KY and doing quite well. In fact, they have recently reintroduced a front-wheel-drive (not all-wheel-drive) platform wherein they use a variation of their AWD driving front axle and a drop-box (transfer case without a rear output shaft) to eliminate a typical truck's rear drive shaft and axle beam. Instead, fully independent trailing arm suspension is used in the rear, with no connecting tube. Thus, a top-of-frame height of 11" can be achieved. They've made these using Freightliner, International and Peterbilt Class 7 and 8 type trucks. Special low floor buses have also been produced. They originally made front drive trucks, although much lighter duty versions, in the early 50's.
They have been building AWD truck conversions since 1935 and built their own AWD heavy duty trucks from 1931 until the late 50's. You would expect to see M-H identification plates all over any of their conversions, especialy Fords (one on each side of the exterior of the hood, "AWD serial/model number" plate and "Lubrication Instructions" plate on the inside of the driver's door, and shift pattern for the transfer case on the dashboard). On some of their medium duty and heavy duty conversions with a "compensating drive" full-time AWD transfer case they used two data plates on the dash.
Marmon trucks (without the "Herrington") had nothing to do with AWD, but was a sister company to M-H and built top end (some say the best made) custom Class 8 (line-haul type) trucks in Garland, TX. They stopped production about six years ago.