Just a hundreds yards or so down the trail from where we found the 1941 Buick, I spotted another old vehicle off to the other side. I was a bit perplexed, as it was obviously a light truck, but with an extended cab? In the 1930s?
As I approached, it became clear that this was a home-brew job. It looked to once have been a panel truck, with the rear portion cut away.
The rear fenders show quite clearly where the old body used to be.
A little Googling shows that it must have started out as a 1937 or 1938 Chevrolet 1½ ton Panel, as the body, fenders and wheels all match.
I’m guessing they put some kind of crude bed back there, but wanted to have the extra enclosed space, maybe to haul a crew and their crude and big chain saws or such.
The interior was completely jammed with sticks; an animal nest, or?
The classic Chevy “Blue Flame” six, which was brand new in 1937, is still quite recognizable despite the missing side plates and valve cover. It had 216 cubic inches, and was rated at 85 hp, at least in the passenger cars.
Neat photos! Looks like a single bright sunbeam was lighting your path to it. 🙂
Looks like way back the body was chopped off to make a flat bed and the back welded on with a sedan rear panel to store tools or rifles.Foresight. ” Now if I could sell the idea to GM?”
Great find, I know of a one ton 37 Chev missing a cab, pity the two are so far apart.
Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford truck-chassis were very popular here in the pre-war years. Below a heavy-duty panel van with a raised roof. I assume this is based on a Chevrolet truck chassis from the thirties ? No idea about its “US weight class”. Coachbuilder Den Hartog Bros. had telephone number one 🙂
That looks like a pretty clean job, too, considering at the time it would have been more than acceptable to just weld on a flat plate and call it good.
Looks like some skilled metalwork. Now the question is what was the source of that back panel. I wonder if it might have been a passenger car? However, having wasted so much time earlier in the week trying to ID that 27-ish Chevy coach, I’m out.
The lighting on these shots is fantastic.
I’d guess it was meant as a sleeper for a semi arrangement. Homemade sleepers were fairly common before the factories picked up the idea.
A lot of the larger fire departments had shops where custom work like this would be done. There was a nicely restored ’30s GM brush/forestry truck with an extended cab at one of our cruise nights last summer.
Love the way the engine looks without the covers.
Like a skeleton. seems fitting, given the vehicles fate
Another double cab from de Thirties… Brazilian made in the factory of GM?
Nice! Double cab trucks seem to have sprung up earlier in certain parts of the world than in the US, presumably places where there were fewer vehicles so that a crew could be transported along with the goods. In the US, cars were so common, that it just wasn’t as much of an issue.
Very nice truck .
The dash indicates it can’t be newer than 1939 , I wish there had been more sunlight but all those ‘photos are simply marvelous Paul .
Home brew rigs like this were very common on rural farms when I was a Lad , most had simply awful chopping and welding though ~ this one looks well done .
-Nate
Paul, great shots. I can just feel the quite wind through the trees and smell the pine needles.
Nice pictures – I love stumbling across cars in the woods. This one is certainly unique. The exposed push rods on that Blue Flame six are cool to look at.
Heres mine from just yesterday.
Nice lighting indeed. Always interesting to wonder how these vehicles got there, and how long ago? Perhaps this one came in with a forester, surveyor, or logger and then was left behind when it failed to start back up? Who knows…