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1899 — 1902
Tested by an army, in the field, against the world: The most exacting foreign customer the wagon works ever faced was the British Army in South Africa, and the verdict survives in an official report. During the South African War the British imported American wagons for trial in the field, and Howard's 1907 county history quotes the commander-in-chief's judgment verbatim: Lord Roberts, "the military head of the armies of Great Britain, in South Africa, in his official report, said: 'Wagons were imported for trial from the United States, and these proved to be superior to any other make, either of Cape or English manufacture. The wheels were of hickory and the metal work of steel. They were built by Messrs. Studebaker Bros. Mfg. Co., who have a great vehicle factory at South Bend, Indiana.'" The trial wagons were a test, not a fleet purchase, and the file prints them at that size; but the document stands as the wagon era's export record in one paragraph — a South Bend product taken into a war on another continent, measured against Cape and English makes by the army that tried all three, and reported superior by the general commanding. Twelve years later the same army came back by cable, at a scale the next entries record.
Sources:
- Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907) — Lord Roberts's official report on the trial wagons, quoted in full, naming the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company of South Bend.