Although the 1955 Chevrolet Cameo Carrier was the first pickup with a wide bed, it was a pricey limited production affair and the bed was cobbled up from a regular bed with fiberglass extensions. Ford saw the light, and gave its all-new 1957 pickups an all steel Styleside bed, and thus started a pickup revolution. William Garret spotted and shot this one in Palo Alto, CA.
GM didn’t take long to respond with their own all-steel wide bed in 1958, dubbed the Fleetside. But Ford got their first, and it was one of the many little successful steps Ford took to slowly claw their way from a distant #2 to the #1 pickup sales crown, in 1977, IIRC.
Tailgate hook.
When I first saw this shot, I assumed someone had added either the V8 emblem or the hood emblem, as that hood emblem with the gear and lightning bolt soon came to identify the six cylinder versions of Ford pickups, and it graces my own F100. But back in 1957, that was not yet the case, so this is a genuine V8, the 272 Y Block, rated at 171 hp. That made for a pretty zippy truck at the time, given how little they weighed.
I’m not sure whether this signage on the door is authentic or a carefully crafted recent addition. It’s become a thing to do these on old trucks, and they’re very well done, so you can chime in with your opinion.
The fact that the interior has been beautifully redone adds fuel to my guess that the door sign is recent. It’s got a three-on-the-tree, and the design of the IP is quite similar to the one in the next generation. 
I like the ’57 version of this generation best, with its single headlights.
“GM didn’t take long to respond with their own all-steel wide bed in 1968”. I think that might be a typo.
I suppose the Cameo introduced the idea that a pickup could look more stylish and less utilitarian. I’m still fascinated by the idea that came along in the late 80s, that a stepside bed was more “sporty” than a wide bed. The marvels of marketing.
Yes, a typo. Fixed now. Thanks.
Ford also had the best tailgate closure of the trucks of that era. The over-center latch was very effective in holding the tailgate tightly shut (and pulling the bed sides together), while allowing it to be unlatched relatively easily while under the pressure of a load pushing against it. I think I recall an advertisement of the era of this ’57, or something slightly earlier, suggesting that Ford’s gate closure made the tailgate more grain-tight than the competition, such that you could use your Ford pickup to haul your grain crop to the elevator. I think that might have been a stretch, but it made good ad copy. The other trucks of the era had tab and staple design which just held the tailgate closed without applying any pressure to hold it tightly shut. They were often hard to open if the load was pushing against the gate-you had to push in hard on the tailgate to pull the hook out of the staple, and didn’t do much to keep the tailgate from rattling. Ford’s gate latch design carried right through to the end of Flareside production, as I recall, although the later Stylesides had had the one hand center handle eventually and some other kind of one-on-each-side handle type latch in the interim. I wish my modern truck had that old-style gate latch and the chains. A little less convenient, perhaps, but better in every other way for an aging truck that works for a living.
Perfect truck for weekend Home Depot/dump runs.
This really was the first really modern pickup truck IMHO – it brought everything together with the full width standard bed and importantly, the styling was a modern statement in terms of proportion and not trying to be car or big truck like, but specifically a pickup, if that makes sense.
I really like these – the one pictured with the V8 and patina is perfect….
Is it still for sale?
I took the picture almost three years ago, and I haven’t seen the truck around recently. So I suspect it’s long sold.
If you are going to drive around an old car or truck, let me give you one piece of advice. Make sure your seat is comfortable. It just makes ride so much nicer.
I love this era Ford, and especially the seldom seen one year only single headlight ’57. As far as the patina and faux patina goes, I am all in. A truck is a tool like an axe or hammer, and the battle scars show a life well lived.
My father had a ’55 F600 and I was always staring at the emblem with the gear and lightning bolt. I seem to think they put that on early Ford tractors too.
I’m pretty sure the sign is a later year addition to the truck. Until the late 1950’s, local phone exchanges were named. In 1958, AT&T began the process of converting to all digit dialing in preparation for the introduction or state area codes. At that point, phone numbers began to be listed in 7 digits rather than the old 2 letter/5 digit combination. During a rather lengthy transition period, people calling within the same exchange could still use only the 5 digit phone njmber.
Many businesses hung on to the old exchange names for a period to time while the transition was going on as this method of providing phone numbers was more familiar to their customers.
The AT&T recommended exchange names for a 96 prefix were: WOodland, WOodlawn, WOodward, WOrth & YOrktown. AT&T did not require exchanges named prior to implantation of recommended names to be renamed. AT&T may not have been the local phone company either, so the phone exchange name could well have been different.
The photo shows how a typical phone book would have listed numbers in 1957.
I looked up Mtn View Auto Interiors and that’s the real phone number, but the website dated 2017 says they’ve been in business 25 years. So it could be a real, faded image from 1992 but unlikely, especially given the new interior …. Pacific Telephone was the local phone company, part of the Bell System; later Pacific Bell and now just AT&T.
Funny thing, for some reason my Mother put out an old “fill out yourself” phone book with commonly called numbers from around 1963-1964 when we were living in Catonsville Md. We moved around a lot back then (only lived there 2 years), it has lots of numbers you’d expect, including the hospital (where my middle sister was born) and the parochial school my sister and I attended with the same name (when we moved the next year they didn’t have a nearby parochial school and we only had 1 car back then that my Dad took to work, so that was the only year we went).
Anyhow, it shows things in transition, some of the phone numbers are shown with 7 digits, and others (maybe half?) still had 2 letter alphabet prefixes instead, namely “DL” for most of them.
Also shows my Dad’s work number of course; he worked for Westinghouse Semiconductor in Elkridge, MD (he’d been working for various companies on semiconductors since he got out of school in 1956…that’s why we moved so often). The funny thing is I remember him saying he worked at the Baltimore-Washington airport, which seems like an odd place for someone working on semiconductors (though the government was probably the main customer for them at the time). He’s gone now, so I can’t ask him, my Mom wouldn’t know.
My grandmother (in PA) still had a party line phone. I found out in 1997 or so when I tried to put in a Radio Shack emergency dialer (one of those buttons you can wear around your neck and press in an emergency it will call a neighbor). I knew she’d need to go from pulse to DTMF dialing, but didn’t know that party lines had a unique phone (I was planning on updating her to DTMF for the emergency call box but retaining her old phone). I turned out she’d been renting the phone since 1940 (though I guess starting in 1983 you could buy the phone) so it turned out her monthly bill was actually less expensive, despite added charge for DTMF over touchtone, because of the phone rental charge. We bought her a touchtone phone (with big numbers) and a cordless phone.
Not much to say about the F100. One of my co-workers used to tease our most senior department member about his fleetside Ford pickup as being an “old man’s ” (insinuating that the step sides were more “with it” or something)…and I thought that might have been reversed around this time (some 30 years earlier) when the step sides were considered old and the fleet sides were something new and different…ah, fashion, how it waxes and wanes with time.
Now that’s one handsome truck, although I prefer the one with double headlights.
Anyway, it’s nice to see one that hasn’t been chopped, lowered or anything like that
Ford reused the ’53-’56 stepside (flareside) bed all the way through the 1979 model year for those that preferred the traditional style bed.
There was a brief period in the mid 1970’s when Ford stopped offering a short bed flareside bed but brought it back to compete with Dodge and Chevy/GMC who also offered short bed stepside pickups.
The only change was some time in the 70s when the 45 degree angled upper besides of the original design were flattened off for mounting caps/toppers.
Another nice old rig, I’m no fan of fake patina, if you use it as I do mine, patina will come sooner than you think, certainly sooner than I like on my truck .
“GRAIN TIGHT BED !” was a HUGE thing for farmers well into the 1960’s .
I didn’t like those Ford tail gate latches because we worked the poor trucks to death and once the bed sides began spreading they (this typ of latch) were near useless .
I love these trucks, if ever you find an old beat to crap rusted out one like I had in 1968 (1959 F100 shortie step side ex U.S.A.F crash rig) , open and close the doors ~ guaranteed they’ll work perfectly unless the hinges are rusty or frozen .
GM missed the boat on their wonderful and prettier 1950’s “Task Force” trucks ~ they had terrible door hinges and flexible cabs etc….
A Y block gave these plenty of _GO_ .
Like all good older American made light duty pickups these were anvils on wheels and had good heaters too ! .
-Nate
Even IH tried to follow the Cameo pattern in ’57. They didn’t have an IH passenger car to mimic, so the result looked like a cross between Dodge and Buick.
https://www.americanmusclecarmuseum.com/international-harvester-vehicles/13-1957-international-harvester-a100-golden-jubilee-1-2-ton-pickup.html
Interesting older truck but the attempted car styling makes it look (?) like the bed sides are not tall enough. Add in the chrome moldings that are lower on the bedsides than the cab…with the concomitant two- tone paint, and the overall result is a ” toy ” truck. Did they just “scoop out ” the taillights and add smaller/much smaller bulbs/bulb housings?
Outstanding pics! In this mottled light, this would make a great acrylic or oil painting.
I know a guy who does that style of sign writing, he also pinstripes old cars either genuine or custom style its definitely an art, but whether recent or original it looks good on that old Ford.3 on the tree sucks, but other than that I like it.
The seat looks curiously good. Mtn View interiors must have been involved.
Great signage on the door(s). Wide stroke of the V and W are on the wrong side of the letter; N and M are correct.