It’s good to remind ourselves once in a while that big pickups are not strictly a recent phenomena. Yes, the numbers are much higher than they used to be, but then so are the incomes of a whole lot of Americans, and the resultant abilities to fulfill their automotive desires.
Back in 1964, one of our neighbors in Iowa City bought a new Dodge Crew Cab for just this purpose, to haul a camper around the country for the whole summer. It did seem huge at the time. And they still do, just not as much so.
that is so great
designed to look like a cabin cruiser?
seems the Dodge might have been over capacity?
I think the bigger cab actually reduced the payload
“designed to look like a cabin cruiser?”
That or a wedding cake…
Holy cow that’s a big camper.
While examples of most everything has direct lineage to the past, I suspect few crewcab pickups today have a bed this long.
The camper shell spells it out quite clearly, this is an application where this truck is perfectly useful, and the relative scarceness of them reflects how many people actually needed a truck like this. I’d wager that ratio of people hasn’t changed. Back then it was “I want a camper, but I’ll need an adequate truck for it” now it’s simply “I want a gigantic truck because…. I’m a rugged individual and probably need it for… you know… the things people like me do with trucks”
No judgement, buy what you want I say, I don’t know why it’s so shameful to just admit you bought something because you think it’s cool, rather than extol the functional virtues to explain yourself or rationalize the purchase, which is an explanation riddled with fridge logic.
Almost all 3/4+ ton trucks have 6.5′ or longer beds and are bought for their towing and hauling ability. You may be surprised how quickly you run out of payload on a 1/2 ton truck when trying to approach the maximum tow rating…and those tow ratings are almost always much less than what is claimed in commercials after accounting for configuration and options.
I had a similar/related question for the RAM rep the other day – My question was how come you can’t get a 1500 series CrewCab with an 8foot bed from any maker? My guess was that there are people that could use the space to carry a load that is bulky but not overly heavy and think that the added foot of the longer version (6.5feet) is VERY useful for lots of people, so wouldn’t an 8foot be even better since it does exist with an Extended or Regular cab.
8foot beds are readily available in 2500/3500 CrewCab models so why not 1500.
His response was that the take rate on the 1500 line for beds longer than the shortbed (usually around 5.5 feet) is so significantly smaller than the standard bed that in general it wasn’t thought of as making sense to offer an even longer one. Those that would be willing to deal with the bigger issues of parking it etc, would usually want the added capability of the larger 2500/3500 anyway. Others would just get a van. Most CrewCab 1500’s are used for “personal use” most of the time.
I believe this is the rear of the same camper. Quite a set-up — I’d love to see the inside.
I wonder what they mean by “approved safety features”. What are they and who approved them?
This is as close as I can find, a cutaway diagram of a similar model. These things had *three* levels, and some even had a pop-up on the top one. Biggest floorplan surprise is that there isn’t a bed directly behind the over-cab front windows but rather a couch.
Love those wraparound windows on the camper. Sixties modern!
But really, what a monstrosity. Was it actually practical to slide that camper off and use the truck when you got it home? Wouldn’t an Airstream or an RV have made more sense?
They don’t really “slide” out. There are fold down legs on the sides (You can see them in the picture) that fold down and then extend like a jack to lift the camper up a bit and then you drive out from under it until you need it again. It would take up the same or less space than an Airstream or RV but costs less as you don’t need any axles, wheels, brakes, undercarriage or engine beyond what you already have in the truck that can also be used for other things.
The fold down leg Jacks were usually installed with 2 on one side and only 1 on the other side. Three legs total. Folks usually stored the camper on 55 gallon barrels or stacks of pallets. I’ve seen many of them fall over when one of the fold down leg jacks sunk into the soft ground after a rain storm with nothing else to support them but the leg jacks.
People buy truck campers so they can pull a boat (hopefully one that isn’t too heavy) and not have to take two vehicles.
I can’t imagine trying to muscle that thing down the highway and would think the biggest issue would simply be the high center of gravity and susceptibility to wind gusts. In that regard, I wonder how many of these things got blown over onto their sides at one time or another. Not to mention how many times they got torn-off the bed by attempting to go under an overpass where the clearance had been underestimated.
All things considered, the Del-Ray just doesn’t seem very safe.
Why is it any worse than the huge and even taller 5th wheel trailers so common today?
Because it’s all on a single vehicle and only two axles vs. four, I guess? (Not really arguing for one position or the other, just trying to figure out the difference.)
I suppose here would be as good a place as any to include the Born Free pickup camper, a slide-in so long it needed a tag axle. Let’s hope the image attachment works:
I would also presume the trailer will have a lower center of gravity and be better balanced front to rear. They certainly appear to be more stable when you see them on the road. But I don’t really know.
What is wrong with this site? Most of my last comments have seemed to vanish into cyberspace…
I always get “You are posting comments too fast. Slow down” lately when I try to post the first one in days, and the comment disappears instead of posting. I will now copy this one so I don’t have to type it again.
Second try, and it worked. Sometimes the second try doesn’t work either.
A 1969 Seattle Pilots ball cap would have been a perfect accessory for the driver. 🙂
When I was a kid in the seventies I thought crew cab pickups were really ugly – perhaps it was due to there rarity. As I recall Internationals & Fords were the most common 4 doors usually painted orange, serving some municipal purpose.
I’ve seen a few Air Force blue four-door Dodges of about this vintage. Probably just the thing for picking up and dropping off air crews on the flight line: Throw your gear in the back and seats for everybody up front.
Quite seriously I had an apartment in Tokyo that was smaller than that thing. To be far, it probably did get better gas mileage though.
Most things in Japan do! lol
The question is, does an apartment get 0 miles to the gallon, or infinite miles to the gallon?
Looks like the rear leaves are already squashed to the max and I bet that camper is empty. Shoulda got a 1-ton! 🙂
The caption is what throws me off–it says D-200, but I was under the impression that, like Ford, Dodge’s crew cabs in the ’60s and ’70s were short bed-only for the 3/4-tons (D/W-200) and long bed-only for the one-tons (D-300), and that only IH and eventually GM made long bed 3/4-ton crew cabs.
I found a ’69 brochure, and there’s mixed info. On the page with pictures, they show what is clearly an 8′ bed Crew Cab D200 with a camper:
But in the back in the spec sheet, it shows the Crew Cab with 6.5′ bed as a D200 and with 8′ bed as a D300. Hmmm.
I see the Camper Special as only being available as a D200 with an 8′ bed whether in regular or crew cab versions. The interesting thing it that the Camper Special D200 Crew Cab with 8′ bed is listed as having a 160″ wheel base while the D300 Crew Cab with its 8′ bed has a 159″ wheel base.
Doh! I didn’t keep going past the Crew Cab section. That explains it. As to the 1″ wheelbase difference, I’d chalk it up to typical Chrysler quality control: All camper Specials were made on Mondays.
My friend’s family had a ’64 version of this, with a very slightly smaller camper. It was a D200 and was definitely a 6 1/2 foot bed, as the camper hung out the back like the photo. I vaguely recall that it had some modifications to the suspension, and frame extensions for the step bumper. The 318 and Torque Flite did some heroic work moving that thing up hills, of course it also had a 4.11 axle. It had power steering but not power brakes.It’s a wonder it could stop in under a quarter mile. The gas mileage must have been abysmal.
I believe Dodge was the first to offer a ‘factory’ crew cab pickup.
IH was the first with the Travelette in 1957. But the crew cab was based off the Travelall wagon/SUV, which only had 3 doors, so the 1957-60 Travelette had only 3 doors as well. Both Dodge and IH got 4-door cabs for 1961.
Allpar and Sweptline.com both say that Dodge didn’t produce crew cabs in-house until 1963, but an outside company did for the first two years of the Sweptline trucks. As far as I can tell from the very few pictures of these ’61-62 crew cabs, they used the same design that Dodge later would when they started making the cabs themselves.
And that 1957 Travelette was available in today’s #1 truck form factor, 1/2 ton short bed.
Anybody want to guess what kind of mileage this setup would get. I think 6-8mpg. That camper would be pushing a LOT of air.
During the 1970’s, I worked at a campground in mountain resort town Gunnison, Colorado. These were a common sight, usually with Texas, Oklahoma or Kansas plates. Behind the wheel were ten-gallon-hat Royces accompanied by lovely big-hair Nadines at their side, the little cowpokes in the rear seat. Typically a caravan of three or four travel together, because they preferred to associate with “their own kind” (their words). They comported themselves with all the self-important superiority which has become cultural cliché.
Experiences with them left me with a distaste for such monstrosities to this day. .
We’ve thought about a minivan conversion, so we could retain the functionality of the minivan for the times we don’t need the camping equipment.
OTOH, I think that one of these could make sense, as the same principle would apply. I think I’d like something like the one pictured below…
Whenever I see pictures of old Dodge crewcabs I think of this one.
pic from IMCDb.
The 1964 Sky Lounge Tri Level, quite a beast.
Imagine being the little crumb snatcher on the top when the truck braked hard or swerved. Somebody took flight if they wasn’t ready.
These campers remind me of the houseboats we used to rent for vacations on the Sacramento River Delta. Basically they were a large camper on pontoons with a couple of big outboard motors. Fun.
That born free camper is something I had no idea even existed. That takes away part of the purpose of these campers to me, the ability to still tow. I bought myself an 8 foot Jayco pop up camper for in my truck, and with it I can also still tow my boat around.