History

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's M35 series 2½-ton 6×6 cargo truck page on 7 February 2025, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The M35 2½-ton cargo truck is a long-lived 2½-ton 6×6 cargo truck initially used by the United States Army and subsequently utilized by many nations around the world. Over time it evolved into a family of specialized vehicles. It inherited the nickname "Deuce and a Half" from an older 2½-ton truck, the World War II GMC CCKW.

The M35 started as a 1949 REO Motor Car Company design for a 2½-ton 6×6 off-road truck. This original 6-wheel M34 version with a single wheel tandem was quickly superseded by the 10-wheel M35 design with a dual tandem. The basic M35 cargo truck is rated to carry 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) off-road or 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) on roads. Trucks in this weight class are considered medium duty by the military and the Department of Transportation.

The M35 family was introduced in 1950 to replace the GMC CCKW and M135 family cargo trucks that constituted the backbone of U.S. military transport since their introduction in World War II. The M35 would not completely replace the M135 family until the middle of the 1960s. However, the M35 would quickly become the dominant truck in its class in the U.S. military, serving with all the services in various capacities. For a short period the M35 was called "The Eager Beaver" by the U.S. Army due to its fording ability. But the name was never popular and forgotten in a few years.

Documents

Date	Document	Details
October 1977 publication date	Systematic Inspection Procedure for the 2½ Ton Truck	Maintenance Manual ( PDF) 19.8MB · 7 pages Publisher: U.S. Department of Defense Topic: M35