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The Model F-5 flatbed was rated at five tons but regularly carried in excess of ten tons, well beyond its stated capacity. Each wood spoke wheel has its own motor and used a solid-rubber tire that lasted for an extremely long time. Unloaded, the truck could travel at 12 miles per hour, which was two miles over the speed limit at that time. There are less than 15 of these electric trucks left in the world and very few have been restored because of the complexity of the electrical system.
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The Commercial Truck Company operated in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and produced large electric trucks from approximately 1908 to 1927. They sold twenty-two electric powered vehicles to Curtis Publishing, two of which were used to haul coal to fire boilers for plant operations. The other twenty were randomly used daily to haul paper and to distribute magazines such as Jack and Jill, Ladies Home Journal, and The Saturday Evening Post. These vehicles slipped silently into the streets each day in the early morning hours never awakening their customers. These trucks received the best of care being serviced in the Curtis warehouse after each use and were charged approximately six hours per day.
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The Curtis Publishing Company was founded in 1891 by publisher Cyrus H. K. Curtis, who published the People's Ledger, a news magazine he had begun in Boston in 1872 and moved to Philadelphia in 1876. The city was already a major publishing center. Curtis also established the Tribune and Farmer in 1879. From a brief women's supplement, his wife Louisa Knapp Curtis developed a women's section and the Ladies' Home Journal, which she edited from 1883 to 1889.
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