Just a few blocks from where I spotted yesterday’s 1948 Chevy pickup was this somewhat unusual 1966 C10 with a wood flatbed out back. Something about it just really spoke to me that day, even though I never crossed the street to take anymore shots. It looks like a scaled-down big stake-bed farm truck. Just needs a half-dozen pink piglets in the back.
Wow, the cab looks new.
My grandfather had a 1966 Chevy pickup truck. I can’t remember whether it was a C10, C20, or a C30.
This truck looks so proper! Everything on it looks so well placed. I can tell the owner put in a lot of effort to make it just “right”. I like!
The whitewalls and full wheel covers are a little incongruous with the stakebed, but at the same time, the combo works. Definitely vintage cool. Also quite the nice range of colors in the photo!
Bring back memories of my first truck, a 65 C10 stripper with 283 3 on tree. Drove it down from Portland where he was working in sales at the time to Southern California when I was 17. Rode up with dad when he bought his new ’74 Duster 225 3 on tree stripper Duster. It was his truck’s replacement vehicle. This truck still had the non syncro 1st gear, the ’70 was all syncro. Made the mistake of installing a 4 bbl quadrajet carb and manifold, all it did was was sound good when the secondaries were opened and caused blue smoke to pour out of the exhaust, along with using more gas. That old engine couldn’t hold back the oil with the bigger carb pumping in a little more air and fuel. The ’65 had an aftermarket heater he had installed in Portland mounted partially below the passenger side dash. It worked well, but only dumped heat on the floor so no defroster. I really abused that truck but it held up well despite my off roading and thrashing.
Another fine old rig spotted in Oregon .
-Nate
Home made wooden bodies were very common in New York where I grew up because the beds usually rotted out before the cabs. The other striking thing about old C10s is how low they are compared to a modern “1/2 ton”.
Have we ever had a CC for a pickup-sized truck with a factory stake bed? I know the Big 3 (and probably IH) all offered them into the early ’70s. Can’t be many left.
Half-tons with stake beds were not unusual around here at one time. The long salty winters often caused pickup beds to rot out before the cab. Owners would make up their own stake beds. They used to be pretty common, and even sometimes even on early Toyota trucks. I haven’t seen many around anymore with rust resistance greatly improving over the years. Coincidentally I did see a late model Silverado crew cab 1500 with a stake bed this morning. It looked quite odd.
This particular C10 is quite well done and looks to be in nice shape.
Since these trucks are not terribly common in junkyards anymore some people do not want to or cannot afford the price of a new bed. This wooden bed looks nicer than bolting on a bed from a newer truck.
I didn’t think the beds had much rust problems. I have a ’65 stepside and had nothing other than a little surface rust on the bed. All the rust was in the fenders, roof, cab corners and doors. I think these were the most rust prone vehicles ever built. That roof is the worst of it. Small little slits for water to drain, but the tension of the water makes it not want to drain through those small slits, so it sits there and rusts the roof off. Top that with doors that don’t drain. I cut out the inside corners of the doors so that water could drain and I could treat the rust. My truck had a nice patina with some rust through. I started out trying to stop the rust and ended up doing a whole paint job. It came out nice though.
I lament the extinction of homemade pickup beds.
There is no more useful general purpose vehicle on the planet than an American “3/4ton” pickup with a flatbed. I personally prefer it sans stakes or with very low single-rail stakes.
I have always liked performance cars such as a 60s mustang or a 70 dodge charger or an early 70s camaro…but there is something special about riding in a plain old 2wd work truck with a manual choke, plain bench seat, no carpet, a floor shifter, great big under-dash fresh air vents, wing windows, a metal dash, a “knicker knob” and a tinny AM radio that goes static every time you see lighting in the sky.
On the planet ? Then I don’t agree, given the number 3/4.
For a flatbed truck with that size, and with that big engines, that’s a very meager payload.
You do not understand the American “3/4ton” moniker, and that is understandable because it is a stupid moniker.
A modern Ford F-250 2WD work truck is good for a 2 ton payload. We still call them “3/4ton” trucks because at one time, pickup trucks in America were available in 3 general payload categories:
half ton
3/4 ton
1 ton
The modern 3 categories(for Fords) are:
F-150
F-250
F-350
Americans should not still refer to these 3 categories as 1/2, 3/4, and one ton trucks, but we still do. We probably always will.
However, there is one aspect about American driving conditions and American truck designs that makes them have a little lower payload for their size, weight, and price. Americans drive their trucks long distance at high speed and expect a better ride quality than in Europe/Asia. Americans also expect a truck to be more multi-purpose
I see…
So 3/4 ton is actually 2 ton payload in real life. As is 2,000 kg payload or 1,814 kg. payload ? (I looked up the US short-ton).
Anyway, that sounds much better. Still not the 2,290 kg payload of a simple RWD (and 2WD) Ford Transit, but we are getting somewhere…
no. 2 tons is 4000 american pounds
I think american pounds are different than english pounds.
2.2 american pounds equals on kilogram
so a 2 ton payload is 4000/2.2=1825ish kg
I think
oops, I just re-read your post. You are correct. sorry
The tons are getting mixed up, I just learned about the short ton and the long ton. So now we’ve got:
1 short ton = 907.2 kg = 2,000 lbs.
1 metric ton = 1,000 kg.
1 long ton = 1,016 kg.
I am not familiar with the “short ton”. I am familiar with the American ton and the UK ton. I think(but I am not 100%certain) that the difference between the american ton and the U.K. ton is due to the difference between the american pound and the U.K. pound.
Maybe what you are calling a “short ton” is the American ton…and thus the long ton(?) is the U.K. ton. I am just guessing.
American gallons and U.K. gallons are also different.
I have been thinking about the oddity of American common number usages. Only Americans still prefer to use fractions over decimals, and base 12 numbers.
My grandparents and parents even used “scores” when counting things and I sometimes still do. The word “score” means a cut mark or a scratch mark. To “keep score” was to put a vertical line for every item counted and when you get 4 lines, you cross it with a diagonal line to make a grouping of 5 counted items.
Fractions(in America) are a method of dividing by half and repeating. Hence we have an inch commonly divided into 1/16ths. Half of a half is a quarter. half of a quarter is an eighth. half of an eighth is a sixteenth. Machinists will use 32nds and 64ths also. Pounds are divided into sixteenths too. An ounce is 1/16th of a pound.
Gallons are divided the same way. A quart is a half of a half of a gallon. A pint is a half of a quart. A cup is a half of a pint…or a sixteenth of a gallon. Also a cup contains 8 fluid ounces and a tablespoon contains 1/2 of a fluid ounce…or a 1/16th of a cup.
Base 12 numbers are curious. We have a quantity of 12 called a dozen. A dozen dozens is called a gross and is 144 items. I use the phrase “half dozen” all the time because I grew up with that phrase. Young kids these days look at me confused when I say that phrase. A year is 12 months. A circle is 360 degrees. The number 360 is significant because it can be divided into 12 pieces each containing 30 degrees. The 360 degree circle is devised with the number 12 in mind. There are 12 inches in a foot and 3 feet in a yard. 3 is a quarter of a dozen.
Why have I been thinking about these numbers? well, because I notice that native born Americans approach real world hands on type problems a little differently than everyone else on the planet does. I strongly suspect it has something to do with fractions.
I should probably point out a list of terms that are used interchangeably in the United States, as they apply to numbers, weights&measures, and cultural differences
Imperial
English
British
U.K. (United Kingdom)
commonwealth
All of these terms mean approximately the same thing to an American.
Interesting stuff !
We call a folding ruler a “duimstok”. Literally a “thumb stick”. A thumb equals an inch. Hence the name.
Unfolded it’s exactly 1 meter/10 decimeter/100 cm/1,000 mm long. Completely folded it’s an inch wide and its height is a half inch. So each of the 4 parts of the folding ruler (25 cm long) is a half inch wide and its height is 1/4 inch.
Los Angeles is awash with home made flat bed Pickups ~ the third world scrap metal guys buy your Uncle / Grandfather’s pristine old pickup for $500 +/- and run it into the ground in a few years , patrolling dark alleys at night and different neighborhoods on trash day , grabbing old appliances , broken Chinese metal crap and stealing anything you foolishly leave where they can grab it .
The beds are done in a year or three then if it still runs and passes smog testing , they’ll make a flat bed with 10′ tall sides and work it like a rented mule until it dies .
In the 1970’s I knew two Black guys who ran the longest bed 1948 Ford cab over truck I’d ever seen as a scrap metal rig , they’d get whole car bodies and engine blocks etc. and who knows how , would load them in the bed without a hoist….
That bed was at least 20′ long .
-Nate
That’s good news to me.
I once knew a guy who had a Dodge D-series pickup, 1970s vintage…D350, or whatever they called the one ton dually version back then. It had a lowboy flatbed on it with no side-rails and the cab sat really low to the ground. The curious thing about it was it had tandem rear axles and the bed was somewhere around 20-25′ long. He drove it without the inside tires…meaning he only had the outer reversed rims on it…so there were only 4 total tires on the rear tandem axles. I wondered if it was made out of an old RV.
John ;
Just yesterday I went out chasing Junk Yard parts for out 1970 Dodge D200 (3/4 T) crew cab service bed pickup truck , I saw a early 1990’s vintage Toyota pickup in VGC with a home made flat bed , angle iron box built above the bed for hauling tires or scrap metal . it was really clean .
I got lucky and found a 1980 Dodge D200 that was a clean original until it hit a bollard at speed , little was left apart from the brake caliper I needed .
It even had new pads in it .
The perfect shiny paint & rust free long bed wasn’t touched but all the running gear and cab guts were long gone ~ it’s nice to see someone still loves these thirsty old hard working rigs .
-Nate
What worries me more than the fact that these trucks are dissappearing is the fact that the demand for them is dissappearing.
What is going on in our world that we live in that is allowing these trucks to vanish without anything to take their place? Something is wrong. I worry that a large segment of our working class economy is dissappearing and along with it an irreplaceable fountain of knowledge. Where will the next generation of fixit men come from who are indespensible to keep our factories running?
Oh, I forgot…
We don’t need factories anymore in this country.
We outsource that grubby work to china and south america.
sometimes I am ashamed to be american
John ;
Not sure where you live but any where on the West Coast there are plenty of Immigrants who still go out and do the nasty , grubby hard works I did as a child and I imagine my Scots/Irish great grandfolks did when they got off the boat at Ellis Island .
I don’t think my ancestors were scrap dealers but who knows .
Never be ashamed to be an American , it’s still better than any place else , I have lived & worked elsewhere so I know this , not nutball made up crap .
If you’re unhappy , (I am !) get out there and VOTE ! .
-Nate
I’m sorry Nate, but your response disgusts me. It is opinions like yours which imply that Mexicans and other illiterate immigrants are here to do everything you deem beneath you, which make me ashamed to be an American.
I still own my flatbed pickup which I had used to earn a very high wage. I no longer have that job, unfortunately.
Well John ;
i guess you’re too good to be up to your knees on cow poop as I was for my youth when I worked on a Dairy Farm (Milking Short Horns) .
me , OTOH have been too busy working my butt off doing the jobs that few Americans apart from Mid Westerners would ever touch .
I lived for decades in The barrio and have taught conversational Spanish to most of my America born ” Pocho ” buddies , I still live in The Ghetto and raise unwanted Kids of all colors & races to be good hard working God fearing Blue Collar Citizens so you can stick your B.S. uppity to good for us Blue Collar Americans where the sun doesn’t shine .
If you find honest hard working people who have to work until they die to support their kids ‘ disgusting ‘ you’re sick and an embarrassment to America .
I see these trucks daily and was thinking Folks would like hearing about them doing Yeoman duty .
-Nate
Flat beds make more sense when it comes to loading. Why hasn’t it been more popular? On the same note, for flat beds, would using smaller rear wheels help? Lower loading height.
That would be counter productive in my opinion. I believe the original purpose of a flat bed was to bring the bed up higher so as to make it more practical at standard height loading docks. You can roll your hand carts off the loading dock onto your pickup.
Most light trucks (pickup-truck segment) with a flatbed have the ideal bed height, with the sideboards dropped down, to load or unload it manually. Without bending down or reaching high. Furthermore you can load and unload it from 3 sides, with or without a fork lift.
Another advantage is that you can haul cargo that’s slightly wider than the bed, which happens frequently. Just remove the sideboards (easily done) and there you go.
Flat beds have issues with shifting loads , you have to either have stake sides or rope , tie downs etc.
I prefer pickups or bobtail box bodies for hauling .
-Nate
Flatbed trucks, even the smallest ones, always come with sideboards, like below.
Drop them down for (un)loading or remove them entirely. Shifting loads is never an issue.
Jeeze Johannes ~
You’re rich ! .
In America, even to day , the Worker Class& Farm Flat beds are all home made or maybe by the Rural Dealer (Texas has lots of bed builders) and no , they don’t come with nice folding sides like that unless you’re rich beyond my wildest dreams ~ Flat beds tend to be work trucks and as such are usually bought a cheaply as possible when new .
-Nate
Well….it’s not my truck… 🙂
It has always been that way in Europe, Nate.
Small trucks (like the air cooled Volkswagens of yore) have a flat bed, on top of the rear wheels, with folding/removable sideboards. Of course there were a few exceptions. In the old days the sideboards were often made of wood.
Here you go, a very nice VW T2:
Very nice indeed Johannes ! .
I’ve owned several VW TYP II pickups including two of the first 900 crew cabs with suicide third door .
The raised deck was nice for uber light duty but I tend to carry heavy things , engines , trannies , moto cycles etc. so I never kept one for long .
Not useful to me .
-Nate
Grain trucks, like the Scania below, also often come with removable/folding sideboards. Dual purpose: grain tipper and flatbed truck.
Inside, chains from side to side secure the boards. Otherwise the truck would “burst” when fully loaded, if you know what I mean.
BTW : there is still hope for the Youth of America ~ I know a young man who lives in Puyallup , Washington , he’s a diligent hard worker who recently went to the Mid West to save his Grand father’s 1954 Chevrolet 3100 series 1/2 ton pickup / flat bed .
NO ONE wanted this clean old truck , partly (? mostly?) because it has a typical home made farm flat bed on it , his Uncle and Grandfather were smacked by a delivery truck as they turned off the two lane rural farm to market highway 50 years ago , the truck proper wasn’t damaged (they wound up in the ditch) but the pickup bed was bent up badly so they simply took it off and built a flat bed and worked it daily until Granpa got too old to work and didn’t want to drive it any more .
He’ll be keeping the 235 6 cylinder engine and Muncie SM420 tranny as he’s a Blue Collar Worked Bee who runs his own Upholstery Shop and isn’t ashamed (like John) of getting his hands dirty ~ like me he’s a mechanic and America will be in good hands as long as it turns out fine young men like him .
-Nate
Oh yeah ~ my old Shop Truck : a 1969 Chevrolet base model C/10 with 250 CID i6 engine , not pretty , I’m in the middle of replacing the rusted out cab on it right now , everyone’s amazed I don’t want a gas sucking V8 , of _course_ not ! I DRIVE and WORK my old truck so fuel economy is paramount .
-Nate