There is an historical arc to the length of pickup beds. They started out very short; little stubby appendages on the back of a Model T. How long was it? Four feet? Over the decades, they grew and grew, until the 8′ bed became the standard (9′ stepside beds were available on 1-ton trucks, but quite rare). Then in 1969, Chevrolet created an extended length 8’6″ bed, specifically for hauling longer slide-in campers, and dubbed it the Longhorn. It came in both 3/4 ton (C20) and 1-ton (C30) versions, and since the badges are missing on this one, I can’t tell which it is.
Here’s that additional 6″, obviously grafted unto the 8′ bed.
And a view from the inside.
Oddly enough, Chevy dropped the longer-bed Longhorn after 1972. Ford then picked up on the extended-wheelbase camper-special truck theme the following year, 1973. But they went about it differently, pushing the rear axle further back, but not extending the length of the bed. The resultant F350 Super Camper Special (CC here) had the same benefit.
And now 8′ beds have become scarce, except on the biggest trucks and a few fleet specials.
Related reading:
CC Capsule: 1972 Chevrolet C30 Longhorn Custom Camper – Very Aptly Named Indeed
Long beds can definitely haul more, but in terms of aesthetics, I like the short beds better.
Light duty pickup trucks have largely supplanted full-size cars as the “default” passenger vehicle in many parts of the US, so it is no surprise that their designs have converged (three-box design, four doors, and a short bed that is essentially now a trunk).
Long beds are much more useful. With trucks looks trail far behind utility and durability,
in my opinion at least. From my truck you can see where my interests lie!
Attached
Short bed pickups are worth a good bit more in the collector truck market. So much that during restorations dudes have cut the chassis and sectioned the 8′ bed trucks into the shorty 6.5″ beds. Or cut the chassis and put a brand new short box bed on the back if the original bed was real beat up/rusty.
Personally I think thats beyond silly, but the guys who do that are usually the its gotta have at least 700hp under the hood types. Which is fine, some of those guys do build some wicked hotrods, but Im more of the keep it stock looking type
Longhorns used the 1 ton 9′ step-side chassis for both C-20 and C-30 models. All Longhorns were 4X2 models with rear leaf springs. They were a clever bit of ‘parts bin’ engineering not needing many unique parts aside from the 6″ bed filler. GMC offered a similar model, but I don’t think they had a specific name for it.
I had one of these in beat to hell condition about 25 years ago. A 72 C-30 painted a really ugly yellow with a 292 six and an SM465 4 speed, it had the 6″ extension and a wood bed floor, I had no idea that it was somewhat rare. I worked for a water well supply company at the time and one of our customers had it sitting in the weeds as his spare pump pulling truck. He sold it to me for 200 bucks after he took the pump rig out of the bed. I put new tires on it and did some amateur body work then drove it on my 40 mile round trip commute to work, to save miles on my almost new 95 Beretta, for about a year until I bought my brother’s 87 Silverado with the mighty 6.2 diesel. I ended up selling it back to the guy I bought it from for $600 and I never did find out what became of it after that.
I’m driving an extended cab F 150 with a 6.5 ft bed now but if I didn’t have grandkids to haul around I would want a regular cab 4×4 with an 8 ft bed.